Imagination

The above image is of a beautiful country called Bergonia, which rests in the Atlantic Ocean between the Canary Islands and Bermuda. Except, it doesn't. Bergonia is an example of geofiction, or the art of creating an alternative world (or city, or nation as it were). Bergonia is probably the best example of this strain of intellectual geekiness I've seen on the 'net, but of course J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is probably the best loved, most widely read, and most beautifully rendered example of geofiction.

If you're of a mind, take a peek at Bergonia. The author, Joe Cometti, spent a lifetime developing an imaginary nation that is extraordinarily creative and visionary, and yet is designed in a way that it could quite plausibly fit into our world. His website is a wealth of knowlege and his maps are simply unbelievable. One can really appreciate the depth of knowledge and understanding it takes to pull something like this off.

I've admired Joe's project for a couple years now because I too dreamed up an imaginary nation when I was 8 or 9 -- and it remains to this day in my imagination. I called it Honoleo; any relation to the land where Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea is purely coincidental (or subliminal); I remember dreaming up the name while hanging out under my grandfather's desk and noticing the manufactuer's label: HON. Also like Joe, my nation exists in the contemporary world, and not in some fantastic place or time. My project is nowhere near the work of artistry that is Bergonia.

I used to be a little embarrassed at the idea that I carried this project into my teenage years and adulthood, but Bergonia inspired me not to worry about that. I also came to realize that, embarrassing or not, Honoleo compelled me to dig deeper into politics and economics in my quest to make the project plausible (when I created Honoleo it certainly was not plausible - but my interests today in politics, economics, and the world has much to do with my desire to make Honoleo as realistic a concept as possible.) I can't even count the ways in which Honoleo guided my intellectual development, my desire to read the news, my love of travel, my political and community engagement, and my limited graphical abilities.

A couple years ago, I wrote to Joe to express my feelings and to thank him for the fact that his work helped me to reflect on the value of my own (it is not something to be embarrassed about; it is an integral part of my life story), but I never heard back from him. As soon as I wrote, he stopped updating his site. The Bergonians were in the midst of a general election in 2006, and I was eager to hear what the results were.

When I learned yesterday in a Google search that Joseph Cometti -- attorney, environmental advocate, dogged progressive, and worldbuilder -- died two years ago in a car crash at the prime of his life, I was reminded again that projects like these are very meaningful. In an obituary published in a newsletter of the West Virginia conservation group Friends of Blackwater Canyon, Joe's sister praised Bergonia as his life's work and a reflection of his utopian nature. Joe himself wrote in a rather beautiful essay entitled "Why Bergonia?" , "Every creator puts some of himself into his creation, inevitably, and the creation becomes a bit of a mirror, something of a child. (Perhaps this is true of the Creator himself, so that the world becomes God's mirror.) This is really nothing more profound than saying that our personalities project into the things we make in our lives." Indeed.

I think only a few of you know about Honoleo, partly because it's so intimately mine and it's still such a work in progress, but mostly because I really haven't known how to discuss it without boring others or making myself seem ridiculously odd. But then life is too short to let those worries hold you down, isn't it? So I'll get my act together soon and tell you a story about a South Asian nation with a deep history and a cultural legacy going back thousands of years. It's quite a place, Honoleo, and I'm looking forward to taking you there.