57. On walking
Taking a walk is nice. I like walking. People like to write about walking.
Walking is not a sport. Sport is a matter of techniques and rules, scores and competition, necessitating lengthy training: knowing the postures, learning the right movements. Then, a long time later, comes improvisation and talent.
Sport is keeping score: What’s your ranking? Your time? Your place in the results? Always the same division between victor and vanquished that there is in war – there is a kinship between war and sport, one that honours war and dishonours sport: respect for the adversary; hatred of the enemy.
Sport also obviously means cultivation of endurance, of a taste for effort, for discipline. An ethic. A labour.
Walking is not a sport. Putting one foot in front of the other is child’s play. When walkers meet, there is no result, no time: the walker may say which way he has come, mention the best path for viewing the landscape, what can be seen from this or that promontory.
~ from A Philosophy of Walking Paperback by Frederic Gros
In the June 1862, an issue, titled “Walking”, was published in The Atlantic Monthly magazine by Henry David Thoreau, American author and philosopher. The essay is considered to be a classic expression of American transcendentalism, a nineteenth-century philosophical, literary, and social movement that was skeptical of conventional social institutions and fearful of the changes wrought by industrialism.
“When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us if we walked only in a garden or a mall?”
What would become of society if industrialization took over everything and changed the normal course of everyday life? If fields and woods were replaced with buildings and factories, then there would be no open space for anyone to walk.
Oh right.
Here's my piece on all this walking commentary:
A lot of people will say that applying the "David Henry Thoreau" experience is just a phase, but I don't know if that's true. I felt that way at 15, at 20, and still do, at 25. Basically, I heard that Walden makes people go off the grid. I'm kinda doing that in some sort of way... I mean I think I'm trying to figure out how to make life simpler without being tethered by the "interconnectedness of society" (i.e., consuming content mindfully, not being so obsessed with social media, talking to my friends and sharing something meaningful instead of mindless, etc.)
At least (right now) I'm able to parse through what was my younger-self's idealism and what was actually true to who I am. Attempting to apply his own epiphanies to my own life.
By the way, I think "phase" is a retrospective term. You don't come out of a phase by realizing it is a phase, but rather naturally grow out of it and you reflect at a much later time. Trying to self-assess from an unknowable future is an unfruitful endeavor.
Realistically, I really don't think that you have to cut yourself off from society and live without a toilet - maybe having a simpler life just means turning your phone off a couple hours a day or something equally simple. Walk. Get to know new people. Get out of the house. Go camping sometimes. Let your thirst for experience guide you, but you don't need to leave society satisfy it. Yeah, society is exhausting, but it offers us a lot, and we're more dependent on it than we can imagine. Focus on removing the clutter from your life and find out what really matters.
On that same note-
This reminded me of this when I read a post called Walking by whoami. Very simple. Very straightforward. I loved it so much. Thank you for reminding me.
I'm going to take a walk this evening when I'm done writing.
~ was going to try walking on hot burning coals but got cold feet,
<3 K