In Search of Lost Happiness

I have been reading A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros this past week, and there was a chapter where he wrote about walking being the final means for the modern man to seek the unseekable, to try and find his inner peace, lose himself into the free movement of the feet, and perhaps get in touch with the lost truths about nature, time, and himself.

With what has been going on in the world in the past few days, everyone has had to make another new deal with themselves over what these heinous acts of violence will mean to us.

In Finland, the person who ran amok in Turku, stabbing people, was reported to having targeted women, and the injured men were the ones who were trying to help them or prevent the violence. It was also reported that the people on the street started chasing after the suspect, who, obviously, tried to escape on foot after the stabbings.

Spain. Finland. Siberia.

Violence that breeds more violence.

I keep walking now because I can't stop. I circle around lamp posts and ascend steep stairs tha seem to go on forever. I walk on the famous bridges and well-known hill tops, I walk and walk and pass by people selling charred corn from shopping carts on street corners, or colorful friendship bracelets, or Eiffel Towers in all sizes. I walk and walk and keep on walking until I find a sense on some normalcy again, a sense of life going on even amid this terror and mayhem and fear. Because of course I'm afraid.

But it's the walking that gives me any semblance of peace. Not the staying inside and locking myself in until the bad is gone. It will never be gone.

One can be afraid, and still try and stand tall in the face of horror, I believe.

The world makes me cry today. I am sorry for our loss.

But I'll keep on walking, and let the wind dry the tears.

Rakkaus. Love. As worn out as it may sound. In the words of my sweetheart, Laura Marling: When were we happy, and how long has that been?