My mode of transportation varies by distance needed to travel and time needing to arrive. For most destinations walking and biking suffice (it helps living a mile away from my downtown office). Running is used for exercise purposes while driving is only for getting a mid-distance, like the mountains, where I’d be unable to do it on a bike and flying is for travel to other cities greater than 500 miles away.
Each of these modes of transportation have there place and I wouldn’t trade one for the other. One thing these travel methods have in common is the picture you get when doing them. Walking is slow, it gives you time to reflect, to look at architecture, to think about thoughts that have been bottled up. Running, at least for me, is the exact opposite. It’s an attempt to focus my mind and body on the task at hand with the hope that it’ll clear my mind once I finish. Biking is a way to get from point A to B faster than if I were to walk. Although this makes travel faster, it takes away from the reflective benefits of walking. It’s a means to hurry up my life. While driving, houses, people, bikers, etc. pass you by much faster. But the beauty of seeing far-off landscape is something you can’t get walking, running or biking. Flying is the macro level. There might be a few flights over interesting terrain, but even still you don’t get the detail as if you were driving, biking, or walking in that terrain.
Why does any of this matter? It’s the same breadth of scope used in macro and micro level thought. Walking is micro, running, biking and driving are progressively more macro until you arrive at flying, the most macro of them all.
I challenge everyone to find time to walk. Both figuratively and literally. Walk because it allows you to see the world you live in, not the world the media wants you to live in. You get to see the day-to-day beauty of being a person on this planet. The collaboration that happens around you on any given day. Although there are faster options in life, walking allows for a much more complete perspective of yourself.
Praxeology, the study of human action, guides my day-to-day life. When I don’t take time to walk (either around my neighborhood or mentally slowing things down), I lose my sense of humanity. Look around you and see the people who are similar to you, and those who aren’t. We’re all here because of community, now be a part of yours.