Of Walks and Change, Part 1

People don't change. They evolve.

Sure, we might superficially alter our current interests, opinions, physical appearance, and attitudes toward others, among other things, but who we are as people -- the stuff we're made of, as it were -- remains the same. The longer you think about it, the more you'll realize that I'm correct in this. Alcoholics are a commonly cited example; it doesn't matter if someone hasn't had a drink in ten minutes or ten years, if he has the genetic disposition and the characteristic mindset where alcohol is concerned, he is an alcoholic. Likewise, as a more mundane example, someone who despises, say, broccoli, won't ever really "like" broccoli, no matter how often his parents made him eat it. Our circumstances change, as do our motivations -- and, for that matter, our motivators. Our selves have not changed. If this depresses you, I'm sorry. Join the club.


The trick, then, as observers of other people, is to decipher what is "real." People today have become masters of the façade, of the bamboozle, and we are willing marks; as much as people wax poetic about individuality and personal choice, everyone has an ideal that they strive for, a perfect mental image to emulate and to serve as a guide in uncertain times. Whether it's "what would Jesus do" or "what would Jesus like for me to do" or even "what would a completely independent and individualistic person do," we base our statements and actions on the assumption that everything "good" we do helps us get to the ideal, and everything "bad" we do sets us back from our goal. But if all we do in life is in pursuit of our ideal, and by definition, we can never reach our ideal, then what are we? The answer is both simple and impossible to comprehend: we are who we have always been. Even when our vision of the ideal changes, we do not.

Last night, I went for a walk.

People cope with their personal problems in a myriad of ways: some seek professional help, while others find comfort in friends; the less healthy among us find the nearest bottle or other vice of choice. I walk; that is to say, I used to walk. I suppose now I can use the present tense again, but that's sort of going against the theme of...well, never mind. There is no theme. I walk.

I could go through the entire history of me and walking, but I have a feeling that the end of this blog might still have a deep thought or two in it, and I don't want to lose the reader before the payoff, so I'll abridge the history lesson a bit. In short -- and in a fit of irony -- I discovered that having to walk everywhere, by virtue of my not having a car, awakened my secret passion for walking recreationally. I wouldn't even call it good exercise -- although I may have dropped a stone or two at the height of my wanderlust, it still did nothing to "slim" my still-bulky figure -- but what it did afford me was some honest-to-goodness alone time. The suburbs of Eugene, Oregon, especially after dark, are not exactly teeming with people, and if you knew the right roads to take, you could go for hours with only a hint of detection from the neighborhood. Sometimes, that's exactly what I did, although most of my walks were only about an hour or so in length.

A few weeks after I began my walks, I was talking to a classmate who informed me that, maybe if I had set playlists (or burned CDs for the iPod-less wonder), then I could monitor how long I'd been gone, and it'd be a more effective workout. I'd always meant to tell him that I wasn't necessairly "working out," but the music was such a great idea that I couldn't bear to tell him. I've always been one to harbor delusion, one of my favorites being the idea that, if I tried hard enough, I could create a magical "soundtrack" for my life -- I'm still working on it, and have been trying since I was about four years old (see? People don't change!). As a music major at the time, I had access to the substantial music libraries of my colleagues, in addition to my own impressive collection, and for once in my life, it looked like all the pieces were coming together, and something I'd planned hadn't erupted into a white-hot ball of flame. Music moved me, and so I would move...with music.

And so, with my trusty Walkman (later iPod) in hand, I'd wander up and down the streets like a crazy person, and ponder things. Sometimes my pondering got the better of me and I'd come home more depressed than I'd left it, but on the whole it was all a very therapeutic experience. Then things happened. I moved back in with Mom and Dad -- no walking on the highway! -- and got a car, and I guess I stopped thinking. I certainly stopped walking.

Last night changed all that. And you know what the old wives and the cliche spinners say: the more things change, the more they stay the same.


to be continued....