Keep on walking …
I have been doing a lot of walking these past few days. My efforts, though admirable given the distance covered, are not linked to some weight-loss initiative. Rather, I find walking to be an exercise in nostalgia and reflection. In my younger years, countless hours would be spent roaming on foot around the Sydney ‘Rocks’ area, a region known for beautiful sandstone buildings, colourful street fairs and an almost surreal blending of the old and the new.
Aside from the actual views, music provides a fitting accompaniment as well. It helps to drown out the peripheral sounds of tourists, buskers, vehicles and street side vendors. Although I enjoy the Sydney atmosphere, that of a bustling cosmopolitan city, there is much to be said for solitude. Most of my walking takes place in situations of dusk and drizzle, showery evenings where few dare to venture out. Although gloomy for some, the rain and accompanying damp bring even more character to the area. There’s something to be said about walking under a massive sandstone overpass, replete with dark green moss and miniature waterfalls that wind, bend and twist their way through fissures in the sandstone walls.
Perhaps some of you are wondering what I contemplate on these little sojourns. It’s nothing overtly philosophical really, more a reflection on past events and contemplation on what the future might hold. There’s a certain sense of stasis you feel when walking through a historical area, as if life has ceased to be transient. It is a soothing feeling, to me anyway. I sometimes feel trapped, caught up in some motorised ‘walkway of life’ that is moving far too fast for me to appreciate the beauty of everything that passes.
Life can grow rather weary if you don’t look back once in awhile. Some years back Ben Okri, a literary master of the ‘magical realism’ genre, was to be found on the last carriage of a small Greek mountain train, travelling backwards as he entered Arcadia, and philosophising as follows:
I have been doing a lot of walking these past few days. My efforts, though admirable given the distance covered, are not linked to some weight-loss initiative. Rather, I find walking to be an exercise in nostalgia and reflection. In my younger years, countless hours would be spent roaming on foot around the Sydney ‘Rocks’ area, a region known for beautiful sandstone buildings, colourful street fairs and an almost surreal blending of the old and the new.
Aside from the actual views, music provides a fitting accompaniment as well. It helps to drown out the peripheral sounds of tourists, buskers, vehicles and street side vendors. Although I enjoy the Sydney atmosphere, that of a bustling cosmopolitan city, there is much to be said for solitude. Most of my walking takes place in situations of dusk and drizzle, showery evenings where few dare to venture out. Although gloomy for some, the rain and accompanying damp bring even more character to the area. There’s something to be said about walking under a massive sandstone overpass, replete with dark green moss and miniature waterfalls that wind, bend and twist their way through fissures in the sandstone walls.
Perhaps some of you are wondering what I contemplate on these little sojourns. It’s nothing overtly philosophical really, more a reflection on past events and contemplation on what the future might hold. There’s a certain sense of stasis you feel when walking through a historical area, as if life has ceased to be transient. It is a soothing feeling, to me anyway. I sometimes feel trapped, caught up in some motorised ‘walkway of life’ that is moving far too fast for me to appreciate the beauty of everything that passes.
Life can grow rather weary if you don’t look back once in awhile. Some years back Ben Okri, a literary master of the ‘magical realism’ genre, was to be found on the last carriage of a small Greek mountain train, travelling backwards as he entered Arcadia, and philosophising as follows:
You’re sitting in this train at the back of it here, and you’re not seeing a landscape that you’re approaching, but a landscape that is receding from you .... You don’t greet things, you say goodbye to things, you look back on things, you think back on things, you think about bridges that you’ve just crossed. I actually quite like this backward looking. I rather like it, because always one lives through life with one’s eyes facing forward, so things come at you and then they go behind you. And when they go behind you it’s as if they disappear and they vanish, and they don’t exist any more, whereas like this, they always exist, they always exist. This is one thing this journey has taught me, that there is a sort of chain, (isn’t there?), a link, a kind of relay system, whereby each one of us, just passes on the baton of our lives to the next generation - and that way, we keep something alive that is greater than us.
Okri makes a strong point. When your eyes constantly face forwards, you often tend to forget the very experiences which define you as a person, nonchalantly accepting them as part of your character but not questioning why. As a child, I lived in some 15 different countries and attended several international schools across the globe. Although a memory of my past, it goes without saying that these experience helped shape my current personality and outlook towards life. In what way? Well, that’s something I’ve never actually contemplated at length.
More than anything, I guess it was the transient nature of life that overwhelmed me the most. As soon as my fledgling self took root in a new environment, it would be yanked out again only to be transplanted somewhere else. There never was any sense of familiarity, continuity or permanence. Interruption was the order of the day for years on end, with no real idea of how, when, where and what the end destination might be. I yearned for stability and now that I have it, wish to rid myself of its hold ….
Several years on, having graduated from university, I find myself in the clutches of full-time employment. The sheer nature of professional life - characterised by billable hours, timesheets, business lunches and formal training - exerts too much of a physical presence on my thoughts. I feel grounded, in the literal sense, as if my feet have taken root in the most barren of earth. Unlike my childhood counterpart, there is no third-party to set me free this time. Any attempt to struggle free will eventuate from my own efforts alone, and no-one else’s.
Okri once remarked ‘keep postponing your destination, keep extending your dream’. Purpose gives meaning to one’s life, and it amuses me to no small end that, once achieved or attained, a dream tends to lose sits significance or importance.
I’ve come to realise through all this that I cannot stop walking, I need to be on the move, on the lookout, searching out what has passed by unnoticed before. Life is transient, fleeting in nature and, as the old adage says, ‘life does not stop for anyone’. It can be broken down, labelled, finely tuned but, like some mystical perpetual engine, will not cease to function. It happens all around us, to young and old, rich and poor, in whatever definitions we choose to hold. Every once in awhile, I will have to be the one who seeks to stop time, and enjoys the moment.
More than anything, I guess it was the transient nature of life that overwhelmed me the most. As soon as my fledgling self took root in a new environment, it would be yanked out again only to be transplanted somewhere else. There never was any sense of familiarity, continuity or permanence. Interruption was the order of the day for years on end, with no real idea of how, when, where and what the end destination might be. I yearned for stability and now that I have it, wish to rid myself of its hold ….
Several years on, having graduated from university, I find myself in the clutches of full-time employment. The sheer nature of professional life - characterised by billable hours, timesheets, business lunches and formal training - exerts too much of a physical presence on my thoughts. I feel grounded, in the literal sense, as if my feet have taken root in the most barren of earth. Unlike my childhood counterpart, there is no third-party to set me free this time. Any attempt to struggle free will eventuate from my own efforts alone, and no-one else’s.
Okri once remarked ‘keep postponing your destination, keep extending your dream’. Purpose gives meaning to one’s life, and it amuses me to no small end that, once achieved or attained, a dream tends to lose sits significance or importance.
I’ve come to realise through all this that I cannot stop walking, I need to be on the move, on the lookout, searching out what has passed by unnoticed before. Life is transient, fleeting in nature and, as the old adage says, ‘life does not stop for anyone’. It can be broken down, labelled, finely tuned but, like some mystical perpetual engine, will not cease to function. It happens all around us, to young and old, rich and poor, in whatever definitions we choose to hold. Every once in awhile, I will have to be the one who seeks to stop time, and enjoys the moment.
S.A.
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