The Cartographer's Curse

You understand things.

That's your gift—or your curse. Where others see chaos, you see structure. Where others see disconnected events, you see systems. You can look at something complicated and explain how it actually works.

You build models. Mental frameworks. Maps of territory that help you navigate and predict. You're the person who says "oh, this is just like—" and suddenly a confusing situation makes sense.

And yet.

Understanding doesn't seem to translate into outcomes. You see how things work, but you can't make them work for you. You grasp systems better than the people succeeding in them, but they're succeeding and you're... explaining.

Or maybe you've built frameworks that should be useful, but nobody uses them. Your models are elegant. Your maps are accurate. And they sit there, admired occasionally, applied never.

Or maybe you've mapped so much territory that you've lost the ability to move through it. Every action has seventeen considerations. Every decision reveals twelve tradeoffs. You're paralyzed by understanding.

However you got here, you're playing the Model Game. And you might have mapped yourself into a corner.

Let's make it visible.

What Is the Model Game?

The Model Game answers one question: How does this actually work?

This is the game of building understanding. Creating maps of territory. Figuring out the deep structure beneath surface events.

It's a seductive game because it feels like power. If you understand how something works, you should be able to make it work. Knowledge is leverage—right?

But the Model Game has a hidden cost: maps are not territory, and the best maps don't always belong to the best travelers.

A map is an abstraction. It compresses reality into something legible. That compression is useful—you can't navigate without some kind of map—but it's also lossy. The map leaves things out. And sometimes the things it leaves out are exactly what you needed.

The Model Game creates understanding. It doesn't automatically create capability, influence, or results. Those require leaving the map room and entering the territory.