From 197c513aafef9cdd1da7dd42b07ba4b25b7d3a53 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Kenneth Odle Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2026 17:25:23 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?Updates=20to=20=C2=ABSunday=20Mornings=C2=BB=20?= =?UTF-8?q?and=20=C2=ABThoreau=C2=BB?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- chapters/sunday_mornings.tex | 6 +++++- chapters/thoreau.tex | 6 ++++++ 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/chapters/sunday_mornings.tex b/chapters/sunday_mornings.tex index 9c69c03..8712768 100644 --- a/chapters/sunday_mornings.tex +++ b/chapters/sunday_mornings.tex @@ -2,7 +2,11 @@ \begin{multicols*}{2} -\lettrine[lraise=0.0, nindent=-0pt]{}{} +\lettrine[lraise=0.0, nindent=-0pt]{S}{unday} mornings are perhaps my favorite day for early morning walks—this is the day that a lot of people choose to sleep in and so traffic, both foot and vernacular, is much reduced and often absent. The world is awake, but the people who infest it are not. I have nothing much to do and nowhere to go, and so I can saunter as I wish within the contstraints of the city I live in. + +During the week I am painfully aware of how limited my walks must be because I must go to work afterward. I can not, for instance, find a path I had never noticed before and follow it. Instead, I must follow the carefully delineated routes I am already familiar with. Weekday walks by necessity involve planning: I know how far out I can go so that I can return home in time to start working no later than 7:00. + +Although technically part of the weekend, Saturday is still a busy day for many people, and the traffic on the roads reflects that, even early in the morning. The eight rush hour traffic jam one encounters during the week is not there, but still, there are enough cars out and about at six o'clock in the morning and even more at seven o'clock that the day still feels full of impatience. We must get out early and start getting things done. \ksecn{The Golf Course} \lettrine[lraise=0.0, nindent=-0pt]{}{} diff --git a/chapters/thoreau.tex b/chapters/thoreau.tex index 332ea7d..ed401fe 100644 --- a/chapters/thoreau.tex +++ b/chapters/thoreau.tex @@ -8,6 +8,12 @@ He goes on to give a long (and possibly incorrect) definition of the word \textit{saunter}, but his point is still valid: we rarely, if ever, just saunter any more. All our motion is with purpose, with intent; we are determined to get somewhere else from here and to do something once we get there. We do not know how to just wander around for the sake of wandering around. +It is, perhaps, part of the danger of the present age. We no longer know how to relax, how to rest, how to simply \textit{exist} for a short span of time. Under the relentless heavy weight of capitalism, everything we do must be commodified. We must have a social media presence, and we must make the most of that. Obey the algorithm (although the algorithms that social media companies use are deeply held secrets and we are not privy to how they actually work), push your product, push your brand, be your brand, etc., etc. + +It was easier before the internet, and it was not nearly as difficult before smart phones became ubiquitous. I am one of the last generations to grow up before computers were a thing seen only in movies and television shows, although I worked with them in middle school and high school and even managed to own one. But they were like a chess set in those days—something to be brought out when you were bored or in a mood, and then to be put away again when other aspects of life became more important. Even after the internet became widely and cheaply available it still used to just live in a corner of your living room. You could turn it off. We used to be excited about getting an email, now we are inundated with them. We could shut down a computer and open a door and leave the internet behind. Now, it hitches a ride in our pocket and follows us everywhere. + +Now when we saunter, it is on the internet. ``Going down a rabbithole on the internet'' is now a thing, but we are not sauntering to disconnect. If anything, we are desperate to connect, to find others like us. We want to find others to connect with to disconnect from the existential horrors of the modern world. + \end{multicols*}