Patrick

“Respond to adversity, real or imagined, not with self-pity or hand-wringing, but simply by starting over. Viewed this way, life no longer feels like a narrative gone awry, or a botched ending. None of that is real. There are no endings. Only an infinite chain of beginnings.”
― Eric Weiner, The Socrates Express

“People strut and swagger in front of others, but rarely alone. These are social gestures. Walking, the slowest form of travel, is the quickest route to our more authentic selves. We can't return to some long-lost paradise that probably never was. But we can walk. We can walk to work. We can walk our daughter to school. We can walk alone, to nowhere in particular on a crisp and breezy autumn afternoon.

We walk to forget. We walk to forget the cranky boss, the spat with the spouse, the pile of unpaid bills, the flashing warning light in your Subaru, indicating either that the tire pressure is low or the car is on fire. We walk to forget, if only momentarily, a world that is "too much with us," as William Wordsworth, another fine walker, put it.

We walk to forget ourselves, too. I know I do. The surplus fifteen pounds resistant to every diet known to man, the recidivist nasal hair, the decade-old blemish that suddenly, for reasons known only to it, has decided to self-actualize on the crown of my bald head, spreading like an inkblot. All forgotten when I walk.

Walking is democratic. Barring a disability, anyone can walk. The wealthy walker has no advantage over the impoverished one. Rousseau, despite his literary success, always saw himself as "the son of a worker," what we now call blue-collar. People like that didn't ride in fancy carriages. They walked.

They walked as I do now: attentively, one step at a time, relishing the sturdiness, and the springiness, too, of serious earth.”
― Eric Weiner, The Socrates Express

“I walk alone. I walk with intention. I let my mind wander, but not too far. I'm getting good at this. No, that is pride speaking. Silence that voice. Connect with the earth. That's better.

I find a rhythm. I sense my surroundings - the birds singing, the satisfying crunch of gravel underfoot. I walk, and walk some more. My legs ache. My feet grow sore. Yet, still, I walk. It hurts, and it feels good.

I am making good progress now. How many steps, I wonder? Reflexively, I twist my wrist and am about to check my Fitbit when I stop myself. I inhale deeply, greedily, like a diver coming up for air.”
― Eric Weiner, The Socrates Express

“We need to hold those people in charge who were negligent, irresponsible, or simply failed to act accountable for the harm they caused. These cases need to be rigorously pursued, and none of those parties responsible should be allowed to weasel their way out of this.”
― Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City