Reading, Writing, Walking

I think people should have an education plan for themselves. Or a curriculum, at least. Mine focuses on three things: reading, writing, and walking.

I want to read more books, particularly science fiction and humanist authors. By humanist, I mean GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, Annie Dillard, Phillip Pullman. I need to spend more time writing; short thoughts like this, long form thoughts like I do when my writing is sharp and warmed up and up to speed. And the rest of my time should be spent walking.

Walking like I did when I trekked across the world. Walking like I did in the mountains of Nepal, in the streets of Peru, in the underground tunnels of Singapore, shiny as the deck of a spaceship. Walking like I walked outside my hotel in downtown Kuwait, and out through the neighborhoods around me, signs for “internet here!” pointing down dark alleys.

For me, these are the pillars of learning, the things that hold the most promise for making me grow as a human being, expanding my mind, expanding my imagination and energy and passion and intelligence and skill.

Each morning I walk for twenty minutes. I walk around my neighborhood, up a hill, down a hill and back up, moving in a broad circle past the houses just waking up. In the middle of this, I feel like I am not on a new walk for today, but continuing the old walk from the day before, and the day before that. I am not walking my neighborhood, but trudging up a vast mountain, whose upper peaks are so high above me that they have vanished from view, and I could almost keep walking up this slope forever.