The first verse of Chuck Berry’s 1959 song “Memphis, Tennessee” goes like this:

Long distance information, give me Memphis, TennesseeHelp me find the party trying to get in touch with meShe could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call'Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

OK, this is familiar stuff. The lovebirds were torn apart, and they’re trying to reunite.

In the third verse, we find out some more details:

But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agreeAnd tore apart our happy home in Memphis, Tennessee

His girl broke off the relationship because her momma didn’t approve of him. A tale as old as, well, Romeo and Juliet, at least, and as modern as Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”

That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebblesAnd my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"And I was crying on the staircaseBegging you, "Please don't go," and I said

But then the fourth verse of “Memphis, Tennessee,” comes along, and changes everything:

Last time I saw Marie, she was waving me goodbyeWith hurry-home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eyeMarie is only six years old, information, pleaseTry to put me through to her in Memphis, Tennessee

Holy schnitzel! Now it’s a completely different song. When I go back to listen to the beginning again, I’m hearing a totally different story. She couldn’t leave her number — I hadn’t paid any attention to how weird a fact that was — because she probably didn’t know it.

Every chord, every word, every line, every image, every vocal inflection — I now hear it as a man mourning the loss of a relationship with his young daughter.

Without realizing it, I hadn’t been listening to the song itself, but rather to the map that I had superimposed on it. I’d unconsciously created a mental shortcut to save cognitive cycles and expend less energy.

Chuck Berry misdirects us, playing with our expectations. He knows that we’ll hear the song in the “I lost my woman” category, and so packs a huge emotional punch when he pulls that rug out from under us.

Maps, Maps Everywhere

We carry maps of the world in our heads and project those maps onto what we call reality.

My experience listening to “Memphis, Tennessee” got me thinking about how much of my life experience is mediated through my unexamined assumptions — the maps that I impose on the world.

As Paul Simon wrote, “A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest.”

But perceiving the world through my assumptions is even more pervasive than that; it’s not just what I want to see or disregard, but how I shape and color what I do see to fit my preexisting narratives.

The High Cost of Maps

What’s the problem with these maps that allow us to navigate life with minimal energy expenditure?

Basically, we’re not experiencing reality. It’s like trying to play guitar with mittens on — there’s a thick layer between us and what’s really going on. And that means our ability to respond appropriately, in real time, is seriously compromised.

Loosening the Grip of the Map

Polish-American philosopher Alfred Korzybski said, “The map is not the territory.”

So the first step in breaking free of limiting, brittle maps is to recognize that all our perceptions are mediated through our maps of reality.

That’s the gift Chuck Berry gives us in “Memphis, Tennessee.” The gift that M. Night Shyamalan gives us in The Sixth Sense. The gift that Neil Jordan gives us in The Crying Game.

Now that I’ve gotten myself started, let me lengthen the list.

Chinatown. Ender’s Game. Fight Club. Gone Girl. The Usual Suspects (that’s two for Stephen Rea!). The Empire Strikes Back. Parasite. Shutter Island. Life of Pi.

The Pina Colada Song. Lola. A Boy Named Sue.

Heck, maybe that’s one of the primary functions of art — to show us the inadequacies of our maps, and to give us a taste of dopaminergic liberation as we watch them crumble beneath the weight of contradictory knowledge.

Your Turn

Once you acknowledge your reliance on a map, you can start asking cartographic questions:

• Where does this map not match the landscape in front of me?
• What parts of the map are blank, or contain untethered cautions (“Here be dragons”)?
• What elements of this map are outdated due to things like tectonic shifts or new construction?

We can’t operate without maps — we’d have to evaluate every photon and every sensation on an instant by instant basis, which would leave us no time or space to extract patterns or make sense of the world.

What we can do, however, is remind ourselves that there is a reality beyond what we can comprehend via our maps, and occasionally peak around them into a world of greater possibility than we could ever imagine.

I’m Dr Howie Jacobson. I work with leaders and their teams to get massive traction on what matters most to you. I’d love to hear from you: What matters most to you right now, and what’s getting in the way of achieving it? Email me howie AT askhowie DOT com if you’d like to have a conversation.