Shall we go for a stroll?
Nick MacMahon, staff
It was a rude awakening the first time I listened to an African refugee fantasize about returning to his homeland. Upon hearing bolder statements echoing the same desire — a Middle Eastern refugee who would rather live in a war-torn country than among Winnipeg’s inclusive communities, the conclusion was obvious: freedom in our hyper-mediated, “developed” free-market West comes at the expense of our elusive being. Sparing you a detailed critique of a system that creates the illusion of autonomy, instead I propose actions you can take to chip away at the structures that constrain your mind, without resorting to hallucinogens or cheap wine: camp, walk and connect.
Annual canoe trips bring me closer to this increasingly abstract concept of “being.” It is a lifestyle promoted by the most influential, arguably mad, German philosophers. Martin Heidegger wrote his seminal work, Being and Time, in a countryside cottage, removed from the distractions of the city. Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche, too, spent much of their time in serene, natural environments. I am not talking about getting wasted around the campfire only to awaken spooning with your best friend to the sound of chirping birds aggravating your migraine; how dare I curse an innocent loon due to my own self-inflicted nausea. Indeed, when you step naked into the woods, emancipated from technology and luxury, you will remember where you came from, with an uncanny familiarity. As the smoke clears, you will see the madness inherent in casino and gas pipeline proposals for northern communities, tasting the plight of the First Nations people. After a long day of paddling, hiking or just breathing, you will accept the sound of a motorboat in the distance (silently cursing it), build a raging fire, and watch the fire illuminate the souls around you. Ultimately, the wilderness is an opportunity to resort back to your primitive state and fill yourself with a sense of wonder, experiencing a non-dual connection with the stimuli that bathes you. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ‘ . . . the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth to no one.’ ”
Although the city is akin to a prison cell, by learning to walk, you can help eradicate the “daily grind” from the book of English euphemisms. On the outset, walking is not the most seductive pastime, considering the stigma attached to it — middle-aged couples bickering over whose turn it is to pick up Skipper’s surprise left on the lawn of that obsessive-compulsive neighbour down the street. If you have ever walked home in a drunken stupor from the bar, you’ll understand the euphoria that results from experiencing Pembina Highway on foot. Do not write this off as merely an Olympic feat in a thrifty quest for sobriety. In fact, Will Self, an English satirical novelist and columnist for the Independent, has devoted his latest collection of essays, Psychogeography: Disentangling the Modern Conundrum of Psyche and Place, to the subject. He believes that walking gives us a sense of place in our surroundings; driving limits us, due to obvious restrictions placed on us by roads and limited perspective. We are so accustomed to the same tedious routes, especially if you are taking public transit, constricting our experience to relative travel between place of work and rest during the week and our habitual restaurants, bars and movie theatres on the weekend. So, get off the road, leave the dog at home, cut across a field, or muddy up your shoes along the Red River banks. On his book tours, Self regularly walks from a city’s airport to its downtown in order to get a feel for the city on his own terms (rather than renting out the mind of a taxi driver), stepping outside the suffocating grid. How far is Selkirk from the U of M? Does anyone want to do lunch?
At a recent talk here at the university by Ishmael Beah, a Sierra Leonese former child soldier, Beah reminisced about his fond memories of home, connecting with loved ones at his fireside chats at the end of the day, preserving the rich oral tradition of his culture and instilling a sense of morality through myth. Do not pack up your bags and pose nude for National Geographic just yet. If camping and extreme walking is too much of a stretch, then you can at least connect with your friends on the weekend without drugs and idle gossip. With some practice, you can find what you’re searching for. Turn down your music, put your pants and/or bra back on, and just be with those around you. Let me leave you with a story about Richard Alpert (a.k.a. Ram Dass). A former Harvard researcher, Alpert was involved with LSD “research” in the ’60s along with Timothy Leary. After being dismissed by Harvard, he travelled to India on a spiritual journey where he met his, supposedly, enlightened guru, Maharaj-ji, to whom Alpert offered some acid (like any rational person would do). After taking a lethal dose, Maharaj-ji claimed that it had no effect on his perpetual state of pure awareness. Although we have no proof that this actually happened, and I don’t recommend you drop acid this weekend, the story illustrates the illusion of drugs and the realization that maybe freedom does not come from consuming, as our capitalist system states.
Next time you are making weekend plans, suggest an alternative: conglomerate and make yourself vulnerable to each other. Be.
