The other day, my friend made a seemingly mundane comment that “walking is a lost art.” As we were observing Seattle with our legs as our modes of transportation, I realized I had discovered things I had previously failed to see in passing. This comment that appeared cliché on the surface suddenly penetrated into something deeply perceptive. The idea of living in a routine (including the banality of driving) has obscured my sight, and subsequently my wonder, from a city I have lived in my whole life. Prior to that day, everything was merely a peripheral vision. I would even go as bold to say that I suddenly felt lost in a city from a perspective that wasn’t my car. On a macro-level, human growth isn’t just shaped by education, or the chain of experiences that lead you to who you are today. I firmly believe that growth lies in a state that allows error and vulnerability. Personal growth is most influential in a perspective that leaves you in a state of unknown. Walking isn’t any more of a lost art than the state of
being lost itself. Sometimes life has to be lived by the idiom that in order to take a step forward, you must also take a step backward. We often become caught up in the routine of everyday life that we are simply seeing, and not perceiving. This is my world and I want to explore it.
1 comments:
Wanita, the young flâneur. It is amazing our our phenomenological encounter with the world dramatically impacts the way we see it. Entire epistemologies can shift by a change in transportation.
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