Last Sunday I tried something I have not done in a while. I left my apartment without deciding where to walk. No trail in mind. No distance goal. No route. Just out the door and left or right based on whatever felt right in the moment.
The hardest part was the first five minutes. My brain kept trying to make a plan. "You could walk to the lake." "The forest loop takes about forty minutes." "If you go east you can get coffee on the way back." Every thought was a destination. A purpose. A reason to walk that was not just walking.
I kept going anyway. I turned when a street looked interesting. I followed a path I had not noticed before that cut between two buildings and opened into a small park. I stood in that park for a few minutes just because it was quiet and the bench was in the sun.
I did not walk far. Maybe two kilometers. I could not tell you the route if you asked me. But I came home feeling something I do not feel after my planned walks. A kind of lightness. Like I had given my brain permission to stop optimizing for an hour.
I think we have lost this. The aimless walk. The wander with no purpose. Everything now has a route, a distance, a step count, a destination. Even our leisure has a plan.
When was the last time you walked somewhere without deciding where you were going first? I am genuinely curious. Even a sentence is enough.
Steven
