**8. Going forward with inspiration**

Humans throughout history and across continents have always been inspired to communicate with others in various ways. These inspirations have come from words and phrases in narratives and music and individual and community efforts bringing empowerment and human progress. Expressions about emotions, togetherness, heritage and communication have also come through "the visual." These can be in sketches, drawings, paintings, monuments and photographs. Maps are part of this visual repertoire as they are human constructions that reflect the efforts, insights, expectations and imaginations of the creator, whether that be an individual depicting some topic or pattern in some original way with the use of colors and designs or an innovative computer programmer empowering the elderly with disabilities or a group effort tackling some controversial environmental problem. What is paramount in promoting ongoing creative mapping as well as mapping creativity is incorporating both a "longitude and latitude thinking" about places, locations, surfaces, networks, boundaries and environments. These efforts emerge when thinking about the subject matter outside the traditional "boxes" or "frameworks" of geographic thought and human experience. These include exploring the perspectives that come from exploring art, music, drama, and words as much as networks, communities, big data sets, bridges and systems. Throughout human history, both amateur and professional cartographers have displayed creative talents in mapping what they see, experience and value around them. From the earliest cartographers using sticks and stones to present-day digital, social media and satellites, the interest, appeal and use of maps

continue to inform, value and display the creative worlds surrounding everyone and every place local, planetary and universal. In these efforts, there are no ends.
