A good hike

 A good hike can fix everything. It can neutralize or it can elevate. It does not disappoint. 

Bundle of Contradictions

I am a bundle of contradictions. I am made up of parallel streams, these emotions and tracks that overlap and create a haze. I am all that and yet I can observe this from a distance. When I am not pulled into these contradicted states, I find all of this funny. I stay in good mood and I ensure everyone around me is in a good mood. This is a state I strive to be in. How can I always be here?

#walkingmeditation

Exercising in gym bores me to death but walking does not. I can walk for hours especially when I am alone. All I need is my phone and headphones. I took to serious walking in 2020 during pandemic days when the best places to visit were open parks and grounds - away from crowd and people. I got better at it as I started doing trails and soon it turned into the only form of exercise that I'd want to do anytime. So much so that when I do not have anything to do, my mind always checks if I'd should go for a walk. When I came across this article that Maria posted on Twitter, I was happy to see that it articulates exactly why I like it! 

See - Walking as Creative Fuel: A Splendid 1913 Celebration of How Solitary Walks Enliven “The Country of the Mind”

Some favorites from this article:

"Of course the best sort of walk is the one on which it doesn’t matter twopence whether you get anywhere at all at any time or not; and the second best is the one on which the hard facts of routes, times, or trains give you nothing to worry about."

-- Wendell Berry

"For company too often means compromise, discretion, the choice of the sweetly reasonable."

"Not a fiftieth part of all your happy imaginings will you ever, later, recapture, note down, reduce to dull inadequate words; but meantime the mind has stretched itself and had its holiday."

"But all these are only the by-products, the casual gains, of walking alone. The high converse, the high adventures, will be in the country of the mind."

-- Kenneth Grahame

“I walk everywhere in the city. Any city. You see everything you need to see for a lifetime. Every emotion. Every condition. Every fashion. Every glory.”

--Maira Kalman

Beneficial for All

हितं यत् सर्वभूतानाम्    आत्मनश्च सुखावहम्।

तत् कुर्यादीश्वरे ह्येतत्    मूलं सर्वार्थसिद्धये।।

(महाभारत, उद्योग पर्व - ३७/४०)

अर्थात् - जो सम्पूर्ण प्राणियों के लिए हितकर और अपने लिए भी सुखद हो, उसे ईश्वरार्पण बुद्धि से करना चाहिए, सम्पूर्ण सिद्धियों का यही मूल मंत्र होता है।