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Walkers in the city and everywhere

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Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#21

Post by trgn »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #18
kderbyma wrote: post #12

I guess I have been practicing something radical since I was a kid.....this is just how I walk around. I call it being observant.

Exactly. Walking for leisure is about exploring and observing your environment. This is article is pretentious af

Hmm... the fact that the flaneur is an archetype of the industrial city, and he only got a name 150 years ago, is pretty interesting, and worthy of further elaboration. Add to this the odd state of affairs that in America, most do not even live in an environment where the flaneur could even exist makes it even more noteworthy.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#22

Post by Brajeshwar »

great_psy wrote: post #2

For anybody interested in being more present while walking, I recommend photography. 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…

I agree with the photography idea. I used to walk around Bombay with a camera just to shoot, which I might have missed on a general commute. With the improvement in phone cameras, I let go of everything since the iPhone 6. Of late, I have meaning to get back with an actual camera and start with street and landscape photography.

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.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#23

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

trgn wrote: post #21
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Walking for leisure is about exploring and observing your environment. This is article is pretentious af

Hmm... the fact that the flaneur is an archetype of the industrial city, and he only got a name 150 years ago, is pretty interesting, and worthy of further elaboration. Add to this the odd state of affairs that in America, most do not even live in an environment where the flaneur could even exist makes it even more noteworthy.

I grew up on the prairie of North Dakota. I would spend all day wandering around fields, dry creek beds, railroad tracks, shelter belts. Just looking to see what there was. The occasional abandoned farm house to explore was always risky but fun. Farmers usually have storage buildings near the abandoned houses, so you never know when someone might be coming through.

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.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#24

Post by nemo44x »

akprasad wrote: post #10
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #5

I don't get it. A bunch of paragraphs on going for a walk?

The essay defines the concept of psychogeography then explores how people have historically engaged with that concept. 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…

Who on earth thinks there’s any probability to the place you want to work, the friends you want to talk to, and the doctor you trust being within walking distance to your home, among all the other things? It sounds like an unbelievably narcissistic or naive idea - that all the things you need wound somehow be just a few steps away because you’re that important. I mean, this is like a very childish thought.

What counteracts it? Reality.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#25

Post by nemo44x »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #5

I don't get it. A bunch of paragraphs on going for a walk?

Nothing to get. Just upper middle class people who have surrogated every difficult thing in their lives and now without struggle or meaning need something to fill that. So a utilitarian task - walking somewhere - suddenly becomes a think piece on how to walk somewhere better than other people.

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.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#26

Post by nemo44x »

neilv wrote: post #8

One of my past awesome significant others, I found due to something like some of the awareness talked about here. 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.…

Sounds like you did too much talking. :)

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#27

Post by codetrotter »

AlbertCory wrote: post #7

flâneur: a great word. 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.

Before phones people had ways to bury their noses still. Newspapers, for example. Let's not pretend that phones are some great big problem. Embrace it. Let people escape their daily life a bit if they want.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#29

Post by mjmsmith »

nemo44x wrote: post #24
akprasad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The essay defines the concept of psychogeography then explores how people have historically engaged with that concept. 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…

Who on earth thinks there’s any probability to the place you want to work, the friends you want to talk to, and the doctor you trust being within walking distance to your home, among all the other things? It sounds like an unbelievably narcissistic or naive idea - that all the things you need wound somehow be just a few steps away because you’re that important. I mean, this is like a very childish thought. What count…

You seem strangely angry about a pleasant idea.

Re: Walkers in the city and everywhere

#30

Post by _hzw »

nemo44x wrote: post #24
akprasad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The essay defines the concept of psychogeography then explores how people have historically engaged with that concept. 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…

Who on earth thinks there’s any probability to the place you want to work, the friends you want to talk to, and the doctor you trust being within walking distance to your home, among all the other things? It sounds like an unbelievably narcissistic or naive idea - that all the things you need wound somehow be just a few steps away because you’re that important. I mean, this is like a very childish thought. What count…

I live in a small college town in Germany. My workplace is a 15- to 20-minute uphill walk away, my family doctor is in the building next to where I live, and all my friends are within a 40-minute walking distance. The situation was almost the same when I lived in China, in a smaller town two hours' drive from Guangzhou. I've walked my whole life and don't even know how to drive. I've almost taken for granted that one should be able to walk to any place that is important to them; perhaps it's not that universal elsewhere?
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