Walking as a Four-legged Activity


Walking I gathered this morning whilst cycling through Pollok Country Park and seeing a man 'walking' with his hands in his pockets is a four-legged enterprise. You see, the arms are actually legs that we have reconditioned away from the ground. This, one might argue, is where it all went wrong for the monkey (whilst all going right for 'man'). You can't really walk with your hands in your pockets. Indeed, you can't really do anything with your hands cuffed like that, can you? The legs need the other legs to keep in time, to offset the trot with a sort of pendulous swinging, harking back to our good old monkey days. Without this swing, the legs are not as free to move, not as rhythmic, and consequently the body (as the summit and pinnacle of those legs) not as spontaneously energized (and thus joyful). It's perhaps a measure of our own incarceration within our small made selves that we imprison the hands so readily, whether in pockets (that are actually handcuffs) or by constantly holding our phone like a child holds its doll, thus stifling our Being through hampering the primal activity of self-propulsion and immediate being. Walking requires the swing in order to be itself. Walking has always been a four legged activity even with the onset of bipedal creatures like man. We have just become so used to thinking differently, to seeing ourselves as different from other animals, but we're not. The sooner we transform our arms back into legs the better for everyone, for that will mean walking will become natural and joyful again (it's much easier to walk with four legs than with two). And that means no pockets or phones to conceal your being in.

 

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