Tonight the Streets are Ours

I love and have loved many objects in life. For many years, I think since I was very little when my mom took me on many road trips, I have been fond of streets and roads, yet as I grow older I can say that walking is one of my long-lasting passions. Since I began to work professionally about ten years ago, I am lucky enough to have so many chances to travel to many places in the country and overseas. I never really dive deep into the reasons why I'm drawn to the act of walking or moving in general. As I'm writing this, I realized that this is a subject that I discussed quite often with Riri Riza and he once mentioned about moving as the consequence of realism in cinema (or something like that). The film's characters can only be developed realistically by fitting them into their surroundings and how the characters can expand/grow only when their surroundings are constantly expanding too. For me, though, the act of moving by feet is spiritual. Whenever I see things and people on the streets I feel more connected to the world and to myself simultaneously. I can never remember the details of the streets I've walked or passed on, but I can remember the exact feelings. It's funny to think that whenever I walk in silence or whenever I think about the memories of walking afterwards I always have the similar impressions or feelings, which are the feelings that I'm old but  everything is possible in life.

In this lifetime I think I envy Paul Salopek the most. He's a journalist for National Geographic and a Pulitzer winner who is currently on a mission that called "Out of Eden Walk". I've never wanted anything from this life but the opportunity to walk around this earth. In fact, I think to walk around the earth is the sole purpose we're created as bipedal creatures. Paul also proves that walking or traveling is not a young man's obsession to just see the world and to have as many experience as he can. Instead, it's an honorable and deliberate choice somebody makes to have the courage to leave a comfortable and predictable life behind. It's argued that one must have been privileged enough to have a deliberated choice to "leave", because in many cases around the world some people don't actually have other choices but migrating out of their homes and seek for asylum in unwelcoming places. Which made me realize that walking, just like other things in life, is perhaps only enjoyable if you have the freedom to do it.