Hello dear friends. Hope we are having great weekend because I am personally doing great.
So I decided to take a walk today Saturday morning, majorly for the walking for steem challenge, but also because i wanted to bring you along to understand why i love my walk and why I love my countryside.
This Appalachian Trail or simply the A.T above is known by its white trail markers and it runs the entire coast of North America.
I took this walk with my Dog 'Bauer', and he really helped me to scoop the areas ahead of me, just to make sure that everything was okay. I told him to stay close, he listened for sometime, but i guess he also wanted to explore nature too.
While I and Bauer were walking through the woods, we had squirrels up above throwing stuffs on our heads. The last time i walked this trail, I covered up all my face, but i still got bit by mosquitoes and some other insects, those insects will find a way to bite you, they are really persistent and they get their job done. But i guess today was a bit more favorable.
So while i was walking through the trail, i decided to also refresh my mental health as well, so I decide to think about Identity, and also about what people think they really needed to be happy.
I have said to my self over and over again that what i needed to be happy is to live in these sort of areas, and that feels true to me, but it is certainly not some sort of universal truth. Half the world's population lives in the city and they are not all miserable. The whole question still boils down to what do we need to do to be happy?
So perhaps a better question would be to ask ''what does it mean to be human?'' What is it that is in my humanity that needs to expressed that i can feel that i have lived a life appropriate to a human being.
The thing that makes humans unique is communication. We communicate like no other species communicate and we need to do it to feel fulfilled. If you listen to people's aspiration, all they want is to be rich, they want to be famous, they want to be powerful, but i think really, deep down, if you really look, what they want is to be understood. What i strive for in this world is to surround my self with people who get me, people who understand what I am about and see me the way that I wish to be seen. There is this feeling one gets when they know that they are understood. The Internet is a funny thing you know, how much it has given to us and also taken the most vital from us.
The picture above is a pond, I used to come here to fish, but unfortunately, i never got to catch a fish, and that was a long time ago.
Decades of years ago, there used to be a small group of people we knew maybe a 100 or 200 people, these group of people were called our Family, and back them you got to spend the majority of your life with these people. It didn't matter whether they were nuclear family, extended family,, friends or community as a family. These people shared your culture they shared your lifestyle, they shared your economy, they shared your life, and you could assume that you would be understood by these people because you lived all your experience or life with them. That is the kind of tribal intimacy that very fewpeople today have access to. We lie in a very complicated world full of strangers. I have got friends from other continents showing me pictures from their facebook feeds, but I rarely know how my neighbor's day went. Today, we know more about the world than ever before because of the Internet, but it is also easy to become alienated from it.
I think this is why i spend all the time walking, enjoying family and appreciating nature. In this countryside, there are no people, our society compels us to live in the cities where there are all these walls that keep people separated from everybody else. What Intimacy means is now changing, what it means to be connected to others, or connected to the world is changing. It may not be possible anymore to have a geographically isolated cultural identity, but what is possible is for me to go on a walk with you wherever you are.
As for me, what i want in my life is to connect to others, I do this walk frequently not just because i want to keep fit, but I always look forward to meeting new people while taking a walk, i wish to connect to people,, to communicate with them and to share my life with them. But these days, it gets scarier because we now connect with people over the internet and that touch isn't there anymore. We have so many kids who are spoilt brats all because the parent were so busy chasing after frivolities and forgot that spending time with their kids is really vital, they forget that the best education you can give to your child is the one from home. The connection they can have with you is one they can't have with their teachers at school. The question is ''Is Facebook really connecting people in this sense''
I walked up until i got to this location which is more like a playground and like a countryside park, but I could hardly count up to three people there. Just look at how deserted it looks.
We walked further more and decide to rest a bit. Bauer was more tired than i was because he covered more distance than I did because he wasn't just checking the trails alone, he also went to areas around the woods to see if she could sense any danger. There were no bears but she just likes to make sure.
The walk lasted for 3 hours to and fro, but I was really glad i walked, and that really helped me get more fit, and also shared a part of myself with my fellow steemians which helped me mental-wise, and my dog also enjoyed the exercise.
It was indeed a fun time to reflect on these things while walking.
If you really enjoyed reading, share your thoughts below lets communicate and walk together.
