Walking

Dante's Inferno a la Dore

I did an errand yesterday which took me into the heart of the city. Then I walked home. The distance was not great. However, the walk was fascinating, since I discovered urban planners' inhumane idea of a straight line from my neighborhood to the city center. 

My walk was untouched by the shade of trees. In verdant Boston, this takes some doing. Trees pop up everywhere in this city, even when uninvited. It was a walk of concrete and asphalt, bordered by bulky steel railings, highways, access roads and shabby chain link. 

I passed half dozen pedestrians along the whole course. Six human beings on a walk which passed through a part of a city which houses thousands of condo units, apartments and offices. It was a time when many people leave work. This was obvious. I was surrounded by thousands of polluting cars, each occupied by one person with cell phone.

Walking in the city tells me what is really happening in this so-called civilization. Too many people are living too close together. Those who decide to avoid this congestion for whatever reason are condemned to live hours every day in an idling car on a wide pavement. They have been provided with the distraction of a smart phone. It is the modern pacifier, which subdues, hypnotizes, indoctrinates and brings profits to those who control them. 

Walking in the city, as I did yesterday, where the urban planners have consigned me, is like touring a level of Dante's Inferno. Perhaps some urban planner with a sense of humor saw this at the drafting table. I find that strangely comforting. More comforting than thinking a mindless bureaucrat with no humanity simply banged it out of some software program.