Walkers in the city and everywhere
daily.jstor.org
daily.jstor.org
She'd made a post on a dating site, asking, simply, what was your favorite part of the city, and why.
I responded with something about the different atmospheres of rather small areas, where the transitions are, etc.
I won, and our first date was to be a lunch break from her science lab work on a weekend. But after lunch we played hooky, and walked all around town and talked for many hours, ending up sitting on a harbor wharf.
Where one of the boats we saw was a ferry to the Cape Cod area, which I suggested as our second date. We just explored it without plans or arrangements.
(Much later, her heightened awareness grew to realizing that she could do better than me, :) but we did have some shared understanding and values about the world, and a lot of that was about perceiving, like when on walks.)
You will become more aware of your surroundings if you look for cool things to photograph. I recomand using an actual camera, the quality of it is irrelevant. Using your phone will be a distraction since you open it to take a photo, but see a notification from x and then you will at least think about how to respond, even if you don’t open it.
I’m jealous of three of my friends:
- A street photographer with a primary focus on London
- A worldwide landscape photographer from Nepal
- And travel photographer from Bangalore
They are all non-professionals, but their work is well-praised, and I won’t be surprised if you have seen them, too.
The idea of framing your view in pictures gives you the right amount of encouragement to walk a lot more. Recently, I walked about 15 km on a weekend, taking photos of the eerily empty weekends in San Francisco. https://www.instagram.com/p/CtpbIlJujAH/
Of course, my phone never makes a noise - no notifications.
- There are no social apps (Instagram, LinkedIn, etc) on my phone. I prune apps that I do not use, once a while and have set an arbitrary limit of less than 42 non-Apple apps on the phone. I will keep reducing that number and will negotiate my mind to less than 10.
- The first thing I did on any new installation is disable notification[1]. The only notification I have on the phone is the critical ones such as Health, Calendar. I have been doing this for more than a decade.
- I carry a phone but it does not even ring[2], except for some of my family and friends. I have left/forgotten and intentionally left the phone while walking around the neighborhood and had never missed it. I do have a watch on, at almost all the time and that also allowed me to de-tether the phone much more.
1. https://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-activi...
It's like having a cigarette in your mouth, a lighter in your hand and not smoking - if you can do that then you have truly kicked your addiction.
I've tried not spending my time on my phone for years. Guess what I'm doing right now.
I am sure Android has similar.
Even in my neighbourhood, not so long ago i walked to a party, it was close by, 30 min walk, but took me through an area i somehow had never walked through before, little parks, woods, shops, a mansion. My city is well served for pedestrian access and there’s little shortcuts everywhere you don’t even know existed.
It's been surprisingly nice. Normally I bike to get from A to B, or to work out. With this I pay attention to the journey as well. And it has forced me out of the habit paths. You know, first day to work or the store or whatever you select a route, and then you just stick to it. There are so many nice areas or parallel streets I never had seen the first 3 years of living here until starting this.
To anyone whose dérive'd, how did it go?
When I got older and I moved to a small city and then larger ones and continuing on til now in my mid 30s, back in that same small city. And when I'm on vacation. I just wander. I spent months aimlessly wandering around Australian cities in my 20s. It wasn't any different than wandering around those shelter belts and fields and creek beds. I'd walk around the western suburbs of Sydney documenting graffiti one week and drunkenly walking through a nature preserve in Canberra the next. My favorite thing is to try and get lost and see if I can find my way back to where I started. I'd make maps in my head with graffiti tags as coordinates and find my way back that way.
Anyway, most everyone likes to walk around and explore whatever environment they're in. Nothing too noteworthy about it in my opinion.
I know a lot of people who never walk anywhere, never really "wander", think it's weird at best, unsafe at worst. They will on vacation, in an environment branded for it. think cutesy town, think Disneyland.
What you're doing is maybe not exceptional, but it _is_ noteworthy that it's not universal.
Wandering in nature isn't really the sort of urban wandering the "flaneur" does either. That only exist in the industrialized city. It requires some anonymity, since it's a little voyeuristic. It requires leisure time, wealth, it's consumptive, since the flaneur and cafe culture are complementary. The city needs to be large enough to discover new experiences.
I don't think we're disagreeing overall, more maybe in our assessment how widespread it is.
Outside Lies Magic by John Stilgoe (1998)
when I see all these people walking around staring at their phones, I want to slap them with that word.
Whatever it is on your phone, it'll wait. Whatever's happening in front of you: that will not wait, and it'll never come again.
Every sunset is unique, and so is every bowel movement.
Just because something is unique and ephemeral doesn't mean it's worth your attention.
Reaper: Not for you, though. Come with me, please. No need to bring anything.
I don't need to look at this bowl movement because I get no aesthetic pleasure from looking at bowl movements, even though each one is unique and I'll never get a chance to see that one again.
Newspaper are finite. Phone are a bottomless pit.
Newspapers are text and images, phone are multimedia devices running software made to keep your attention.
Etc, etc. All that lead to a “wolf in sheep clothing” conclusion on those pocket computer.
Your assertion is it'll be the same. I'm willing to take that bet.
As a small example of what this essay is pointing to: suppose your neighborhood could be 100% walkable and that you could easily walk to work, the doctor, your friends' houses, etc. What is desirable about that kind of environment? What would it take to make it possible? What kinds of systemic forces counteract it?
> Many of the issues we face [...] are deeply connected to the physical world and our interactions with our immediate surroundings. [...] As we emerge into post-pandemic public spheres, we have the opportunity to imagine new versions of the public sphere[.]
> Guy Debord, a founding member of both bodies, defined psychogeography as an environment’s impact, whether mindful or not, on an individual’s behaviors or emotions.
> These sorts of actions, even on the smallest scale, carry significant meaning when practitioners assert how they wish to inhabit a space, and when they are able to convince others to likewise undertake this reflective process of questioning the status quo.
What counteracts it? Reality.
If you don't design your life around a car to begin with it really isn't hard (in many places). On the other hand, if you assume you'll be reliant on a car and then choose to live in an outer suburb you have no chance.
The author pays no mind to people who would love the luxury of mindlessly podding around smelling the roses and taking it all in. Except for they can’t because the immediacy of their stresses overwhelm any chance of taking it in.
Saying that, it’s nice to keep your head up wren walking around a nice place.