The Literature of Walking

I was reminded of the term ‘apostasy’ within Thoreau's essay Walking. He is encouraging the unification of humans and a natural life without restriction from religion, tradition, authority, and society. Apostasy is the abandonment of religious belief, and I believe through this essay, Thoreau is saying that instead of conventional religion we should look to the ‘wild’. Thoreau believes civilization and productivity are the main threats in our lives. I align more with Solnit’s belief that erasure, forgetting, and domination are the main threats that walking can mitigate. The presence of a threat can motivate people to do anything, beyond the limits of societal regulations. Thoreau’s threats are self imposed, created in his head but embodied through 19th century human behavior. A lot of his justifications for prioritizing solitude, intellectuality, and challenging stimuli through nature comes from his motivation to be counter cultural, and dissolve the threat of conformity.

Tucson, Arizona, sits between three mountain ranges, the Santa Catalinas, the Rincons, and the Tucson mountains. My two brothers and I were captured by these ranges, our humble hoosier eyes were always fixated up at the mountain skyline. But all week thoughts of the impending future and graduating college were stressing me out. I wanted to enjoy my time in Tucson but every corner I turned I was faced with stressful thoughts of what I would return to in a week. I had come to Arizona with my family in hopes the desert would provide me some peace of mind, but after six days my thoughts were still spiraling. On our last day in Tucson, my brothers Dylan, Fish, and I laced up our tennis shoes, filled our Nalgenes up to the brim, and started our ascent to the top of Wasson Peak, the shortest peak we could find. The long walk up started in a desert wash at the foot of the mountain, my feet dug into the loose sand making every step more difficult than the last. My head was stuck down until my b...

The guiding question prompted me to question who appears authorized to be here, on our walk, and who appears questionable.  The moment my foot hit the pavement, I noticed a person with a charcoal grey hoodie, black joggers, and black backpack that paced ahead of us. Immediately I noted that a backpack = credibility and authority to be on campus. One bag signifies your belonging. As we kept walking, I noticed all of the cars parked behind our building. The parking passes that clung to every car window, blatantly displaying authority and power to park in their designated spot. I then heard the sound of a skateboard. My head snapped, eyes filled with a vision of a boy with a backpack, beanie on top of his head, and smoke blowing out of his mouth that billowed and wrapped around his face. The blue light from the emergency post, noticeable only for those looking in the daylight. A NO PARKING ANY TIME sign in all red commanding authority. Sapling trees sprinkled with bird nests, authori...