Our walking lines
By Andrew Herzog

Every day, if we are fortunate enough to be able-bodied, we walk. We’ve likely been walking longer than we can remember. We probably don’t think much about it. In our lives, walking is as commonplace as breathing. It’s our personal mode of transportation. When we walk, we create lines. Some of these lines are more memorable than others. Some get shared while others remain personal. Some of our walks are determined by utility, like walking to work or to the grocery store. Some of our walks are for fun or to simply be moving rather than sitting dormant.

Our walking lines are often shaped by our surroundings. In parks or forests, our walks are shaped by trees or trails. In the city, our walks are shaped by blocks and grids. These forces are in turn shaping our lines, shaping the possibilities for what we’ll experience throughout our walks. We rarely see our steps visually represented in our physical environment. We may see them manifest in the form of trails through grass – if we walk the same path day after day. In the context of the city, we may only see our walks visually manifest digitally, like lines drawn over map interfaces in the form of algorithmically perfected predetermined directions.

As with anything, predetermined paths don’t have to shape our own walking lines. While creative freedom exists as an unaffordable luxury for most – when we walk, we are capable of drawing our own lines and experiences. We own our walking lines, they are a collaboration of time, our encounters, and the places we walk through.

Our walks exist as undetermined lengths along a long line that is our life. All along we are drawing our walking line – it’s really a question of whether or not we choose to shape it.