Technologies and transit construction the travel clip. In the name of efficiency, the free clip is minimized in favour of production. Workers must bring forth more in a shorter period of clip. In the universe of information, the of all time increasing sum of informations are compressed into the comparatively sum of clip that each of us has at our disposal. The purveyors of information face the challenge of maintaining the citizen ‘s attending in order to be remembered. Therefore, it consists in doing certain that clip goes fast and that all the spreads are filled. Telephones are best Alliess of this policy continuing from interruptions and deadening intermissions with a clump of applications. It will be shortly possible to place the exact place of a user eliminating for good the vacant seconds left. Time-saving engineerings suggest that what can non be quantified is non valuable. In the term of the author Rebecca Solnit, ‘woolgathering, cloud-gazing, rolling, window-shopping, are nil but nothingnesss ‘ . Using the way of a state route as illustration, she recounts her ain experience of walking. Even in a topographic point of nowhere, a topographic point that can merely be walked for pleasance, people would dispute the indefiniteness of the way by making cutoffs concentrating on accomplishment. She suspects that heads need awkwardness and she found in walking a sensitive manner to salvage the ideas from eroding. She describes her walks as finds ; what remains is non the accomplishment but the journey on which much may be discovered. Solnit deeply inquiries the velocity of modern life in correlativity with ideas. As innovations have been accumulated in the field of conveyance from the late eighteenth Century, ( the coming of steam power, railroads, cars ) , the clip bit by bit releases itself from its natural restraints thereby going more flexible and governable. Therefore unlike the infinite staying by nature, solid, inert and inflexible, clip ever gives itself to technology and to use. This “ docilisation ” of the clip as names it the sociologist Zigmunt Bauman in Liquid Modernity, necessarily creates an empowering of clip comparative to infinite. The opposite phenomenon is a merger of clip and infinite on a well balanced degree. We can mention the illustration of journalist, author, traveller and Gallic climber Sylvain Tesson going throughout the universe on pes, bike or on horseback. The adult male tells us how contending the stat mis with his ain strength, his ain energy, alter his relationship to the outside universe. There is harmoniousness in the March. He speaks of it as a encephalon pacesetter, walking permeates the organic structure and head, off from the supercharger and information overload. “ Why philosophers used to walk? I ‘m certain there is a neurobiological ground. ” Besides, it is interesting that this adult male who maintains a so close relationship between clip and infinite has so many aspects. ‘We ‘ say that person is a author, psychologist, attorney, driver or a scientist. These appellations slightly arbitrary connote a “ specific ” experience of the universe that a life devoid of boundaries between clip and infinite like the one of Sylvain Tesson, does non compel. This is why he bears several names ( journalist, author, traveller and mountain climber ) showing a multidisciplinary experience of the universe.

B. POST MODERNITY OR THE PASSIVITY OF THE BODY

‘If the organic structure is a metaphor for our locatedness in infinite and clip and therefore for the finiteness of human perceptual experience and cognition, so the postmodern organic structure is no organic structure at all, ‘

SUSAN BORDO

Since the westerner citizen has filled up all the nothingnesss of clip possible, the clip of walking from one topographic point to another, the clip of waiting in traffic or in shops, the clip of waiting a coach, a lift, a cab, a server, the clip of aimless walk have been deplored as a waste and replaced with earpieces playing music, nomadic phones linking to internet, to friends, offering big scope of applications, laptops smaller and smaller, movable and practical, giving entree to e-mail, movies, music, while being on a plane or on a train, video game ‘s devices etc ‘ The really ability to value the clip mediate is disregarded and so does the pleasance of merely being outside, including as remarked Solnit being outside of the familial domain. Indeed, technological devices have had the great advantage of linking people together and paradoxically unpluging them from the unknown. Another effect demonstrated in Wanderlust is the eroding of the critical organic structure in action. She believes that substructures must be planned harmonizing to the prosaic who loses his topographic point among the absolutism of autos. Human existences must rethink the infinite in relation to clip and their organic structures. Obesity and related diseases are some of the physical effects of stationariness. The author criticized a consumerist society overfed from childhood and incapable of looking after their organic structures and so their heads. While post-modernity challenges the mobility, nevertheless theories about organic structure do non picture corporeal behaviours put to a terrible trial. The organic structure liberated from manual labour, heartily cocooned at place or at work instead embodies the symbol of a inactive object. It seems for Solnit that the organic structure is nil but a pawn which does n’t travel but is moved. Walking conducts the organic structure to its original bounds. ‘the way is an extension of walking, ‘ , merely the walking organic structure can unify with the environment it has created ; waies, Parkss, pavements and athleticss equipment are physical work of the moving out of imaginativeness.

c. DISAPPEARANCE OF SPACE

“ The adult male himself is a set of instruments. If I sit on the floor, I ‘m a place if I walk, I ‘m a conveyance, and if I sing, I ‘m a musical instrument. The organic structure is the primary set of objects at the disposal of adult male, while the tools are unreal and monstrous extensions. The primitive, the nomad, the hitchhiker condense in themselves their tools, ( … ) . They are a house, they are an architecture. “

ALESSANDRO MANDINI

To understand the demand to retie the clip and infinite, threatened by velocity, Virilio, urban contriver and litterateur, takes the kid as illustration. The kid to whom everything seems ab initio inordinate, disproportional and when he gets older who sees things shriveling, diminishing. Everything is all of a sudden within range, narrow. The same is true of our perceptual experience of the spacial extent. At first it seems huge and unaccessible. Speed made it accessible, and it is yet a paradox since in the same clip it seems to shrivel. It is like vanishing from sight. “ What about the consciousness of the minute, the strength of the being-here? ” . There is, harmonizing to the writer, a progressive disappearing of the infinite as an anthropological mention to the benefit of an “ machine-controlled pilot ” that bit by bit reshapes the definition of human experience. Virilio speaks of an ripening of the universe and of its nonsubjective world and suggests that the infinite constrained by the velocity becomes the non-space of the technique. It is the same of the human activity. It is non affair of contemplating the landscape but merely to supervise the flight on the synergistic screen. “ ( ‘ ) a journey without journey, a hold without hold. ” Earlier agencies of travel had closely engaged the travellers with their milieus but spacial and animal battle with the landscape evaporated with railroad ‘s development. Two topographic points are separated by an of all time shortening sum of clip. This disappearing of the infinite forces us to construct our ain temporalty.

d. A FL’NEUR IN THE STREETS

Although streets are left between the edifices and they have become a existent topographic point of citizenship in large metropoliss. While walking down the streets maintains the ‘publicness ‘ and viability of public infinite as described by Solnit, Virilio speaks of the large metropoliss as topographic points of ‘anonymity and decomposition ‘ where cipher is truly connected. It seems that clip dominates infinite for that really ground that distances and infinites shrink and disappear. Walking is about being outside but public infinites are eclipsed by engineerings and services which promote shopping online and feed the feeling of insecurity by deluging the yellow journalisms with vicinity ‘s slayings. For many metropoliss, public infinites have turned into promenades, auto ‘s lanes or parking tonss. In 1855, Baudelaire sing the alteration of face of his beloved Paris by the Baron Haussmann, complains about the wide, big and consecutive avenues that transformed Paris ‘ ‘wilderness ‘ into a formal garden. So to talk, visions of splendid have more than one time threatened the citizen walking experience. Everything in the surrounding, even the crowd feel like a wholly new human experience. One of Baudelaire ‘s declinations is the loss of interlace of the head. The Walker carries with him the geographical form of his spacial experience. This mental map is associated to his really ain memories. Baudelaire experiences the feeling of a dispelled memory. ‘Paris is altering but nil within my melancholy has shifted! New castles, stagings, hemorrhoids of rock. Old neighborhoods-everything has become fable for me and my beloved memories are heavier than rocks. ‘ Paris, ‘The virgin wood ‘ is born from an organic act of clip, coevalss, manual and independent gestures whereas Paris of Haussmann is the creative activity of one maestro program carried out within a few old ages. Paris had stopped turning, Paris started to be designed. The metropolis in deep transmutation cleans off the geographical bearings so much that merely stay the psycho-geographical 1s. The journey of the poet in the streets of a deformed and dehumanised capital leads him to a kind of impetus which marginalized the Walker. The urban experience of Baudelaire is characterized by fragments of visions, of sounds and feels. The impetus of the poet takes on new significance with the find of a alone fanciful stimulated by the esthesis of urban ambiances. The Paris of Baudelaire is non linked with a infinite, an country. There is no Baudelaire house to see, merely some hotels or a memorial tablet. The poet himself ne’er truly refers to topographic points, edifices. Paris as a whole field of physical and interior geographic expedition comprises Baudelaire ‘s memory and individuality. It is by going a flaneur sauntering around Paris ‘ streets that one can to the full feel the anxiousness Baudelaire one time felt about his metropolis come ining the modern age. And frailty versa it is by reading through his memories, verse forms and narratives that one can to the full plunge himself in the universe of the flaneur. The image of the flaneur, nevertheless, has changed since Baudelaire. His grasp of the universe conceals a secret hurt about his hereafter ; the Baudelerian flaneur is a chameleon of the crowd capable of pacing ‘s fluctuations, in one manus able ‘to people his purdah ‘ and in the other ‘to be entirely in a bursting crowd ‘ . But at the morning of the industrial age, this flaneur has evolved every bit faster as did the velocity and Baudelaire questioned the remainder of his life the bounds between the flaneur able to incarnate many functions in one and to populate the experience of the universe and the people with passion and the dude, merchandise of modern life, disengaged and judgmental perceiver. Already, the premises of modernness created new societal attitudes towards others. Modernity was transforming worlds and their relationship to infinite and clip. The flaneur who had a cardinal function in the apprehension and in the perceptual experience of a metropolis rapidly became a chief histrion of theatrical presentation through hideous Acts of the Apostless like walking polo-necks on the streets on behalf of protesting against velocity and uniformity. The philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel efforts to codify the baudelairian urban experience. In his essay The Metropolis and Mental Life, Simmel explains that the new complexness of urban organisation inculcates a cult of unconcern and alters cardinal impressions of freedom and being.

e. IS THERE STILL PLACE FOR REVERIES

Indeed, philosophers used to walk. The immature Friedrich Nietzsche one time declares ‘For diversion, I turn to three things, and a fantastic diversion they provide! My Schopenhauer, Schumann ‘s music, and, eventually, lone walks. ‘ Although philosophers who wrote about walking are rarer ; Rousseau is one of them, he enshrined a great portion of his life believing about the benefits of walking on people ‘s heads. In his Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Rousseau offers contemplations on the nature of adult male and his Spirit. The book consists of 10 chapters of unequal size, or walks which depict an experience near to the contemplation, through isolation, a peaceable life, and above all, a symbiotic relationship with nature, developed by walking, by contemplation, and by gardening that Rousseau enjoys. Sylvain Tesson besides speaks of composing as a manner to “ retrieve the flight of clip. ” One wonders what motivates the desire to go seen over the past 20 old ages. Tesson suggests that the adventurers do non go for them but for increasing cognition of the universe, to state a sort of “ Bard ” as did the Celts, to supply cognition of infinite and existent clip. Paradox in a universe where entree to knowledge is treated as acquired owing to modern communicating tools. The Rousseauian political orientation insists in the fact that work forces and nature lived in better harmoniousness in their original status. The crust of his discourses aims to knock the society of his clip and his thoughts are still discussed today. The nuanced narration of his thoughts had more impact that his existent Utopian construct of adult male and nature. However, the characters he portrays frequently live a simple rural life. The journey of the philosopher starts early when one twenty-four hours in his 15th twelvemonth, he returns to Geneva from a ramble in the state. Ferocious to recognize that he arrived excessively late and that the Gatess of the metropolis are shut, he decides impetuously to go forth the topographic point, go forth his survey and walks out of Switzerland. He stays in Italy and France for a piece, looking for the purpose of his life, until he understands that walking is the greatest interior experience a adult male can populate. ‘Never did I think so much, exist so vividly, and see so much, ne’er have I been so much myself ( ‘ ) as in the journeys I have taken entirely and on pes. There is something about walking that stimulates and enlivens my ideas. When I stay in one topographic point, I can barely believe at all, my organic structure has to be on the move to put my head traveling. The sight of the countryside, the sequence of pleasant positions, the unfastened air, a sound appetency, and the good wellness I gain by walking, the easy ambiance of an hostel, the absence of everything that makes me experience my dependance, of everything that recalls me to my state of affairs. All this service to liberate my spirit, to impart a greater daring to my thought, so that I can unite them, choose them, and do them mine as I will, without fright and restraint. ‘ Walking seems to hold become for Rousseau a manner to get away the feeling of a dissatisfactory and betraying universe. It became a manner of life, of thought and of being. Walk was for the adult male of cognition the nucleus of his idea. In Greek, the verb ‘peripat ‘ meant “ to travel around ” , “ come and travel ‘ , ” walk “ , but it was besides more precise significance of ” speaking by walking ‘ . Therefore, under the old design, the walk meant more than a manner of travel: it besides meant a manner of socialisation. At the word walk was hence linked the thought of a relation to others. The Reveries of a lone Walker are published in 1782. Its rubric announces already a different construct of the. The walk that the etymology relates to the conversation is now lone. The walk is for Rousseau the chance of a conversation ; non between friends but instead between the Walker and his ain psyche. Rousseau walks entirely in nature and so returns to compose down thoughts and dreams that have lived during his walk: “ The diversion of my day-to-day walks were frequently filled with delicious contemplations which I regret to hold lost memory. I will repair by composing those who may come to me yet ” . His Reveries are the last book of the Walker and Rousseau divides it in 10 chapter that he renames ‘walks ‘ Even though, they do non picture the act of walking, they are a aggregation of preoccupations and mediations that one can hold on a walk and represents a physical representation of the aroused ideas. His work of authorship is every bit lone as his strolling. Rousseau ‘s Reveries are one of the first portrayals proposing the relationship between going through memories and memories through traveling.

f. THE PHYSICAL WALK ACTS AS A PLACEBO

“ the Walker follows a route, but [ … ] deviates invariably returns departs from it once more, for the sheer pleasance of the trip – or aside. ‘

NORMAND DOIRON

In 2004, the ACFAS, the Gallic Association for the Knowledge organizes a symposium on the Reveries of a Lone Walker. In the context participants were given the end to light the three facets contained in the rubric of the book: what is a ‘reverie ‘ for Rousseau? What does he intend by “ walk ” ? What serves his solitariness? Amelia Desruisseaux-Talbot critically discusses the profound nature of Rousseau ‘s walks. Her text reveals that even if he lives in the bosom of the metropolis, the poet however makes long day-to-day walks in the countryside. In fact, his walk twenty-four hours leads about ever out of town to happen himself surrounded by nature, as evidenced by one narrative of his walk. ‘On Thursday, October 24, 1776 after dinner I followed the avenues to the Rue du chemin vert by which I reached the highs of Menilmontant, and so I took the trail through vineries and hayfields, I crossed up Charonne the smiling landscape that separates these two small towns, I made a roundabout way back through the same Fieldss by taking another way. I amused myself to stride them with this pleasance and this involvement that have ever given me nice sites, ‘ If Rousseau is so affectionate of walking is first to make full the “ demand to exert and take a breath fresh air. ” Walking strengthens his wellness by promoting the motion of the organic structure. Besides these grounds of wellness and physical wellbeing, the independent character of Rousseau finds in walking a hearty mean of transit that allows a complete autonomy. Rousseay himself describes his manner of walking as a roving. Wearing his attending to “ the sweet odors, bright colourss, the [ … ] elegant signifiers ” is a manner for Rousseau to let go of the bad ideas that sometimes enter into him. Flowers and Plants entertain his agony. Botany Acts of the Apostless as a placebo. “ Botany is the survey of an idle lone ” he says. It requires no physical or mental attempt and therefore creates no motion of pride or amour propre in those who botanized. The fact that self-pride does non come into drama when botanized is indispensable for Rousseau, as harmonizing to its anthropological attack, self-pride is an unreal passion that comes in the bosom of the adult male the minute he leaves himself to conceive of the expression of others on him. Man that is inhabited by self-pride may no longer be concerned with himself and his immediate public assistance, since involvement turned more to the position that others have of him. When Rousseau was at the tallness of his celebrity, he says he ne’er succeeded in his lone walks to be true to himself and nature, since “ the exhausts of pride and the uproar of universe in [ his ] eyes tarnish the freshness of Grovess and upset peace in retirement.

g. THE LINK BETWEEN WALK AND INSIGHTS

The literary critic Marcel Raymond tells us that the word “ dream ” comes from the Latin ‘reexvagare ‘ , explicating that the primary significance of this verb is “ wander, ” “ outer rolling ” . If so, the original sense of dreaming was kindred to walking. The word takes a somewhat different significance over the old ages: ‘to dream ‘ no longer means “ outer roving ” , but instead, so to talk, “ interior wander ‘ . Associate the dream as a signifier of “ interior roving ” allows to foreground the confidant nexus between Rousseau ‘s Reveries and his lone walks: the ‘outer rolling ‘ enables a better attack of the ‘inner rolling ‘ . The key is non so much walk outside but the inner walks which follow from. Amelia Desruisseaux-Talbot uses the illustration of the 4th walk to show that Rousseau is clearly non interested in depicting what he saw or experienced during his walks, but what he thought or dreamed. ‘ ” But I, detached from them [ work forces ] and everything, what am I myself? That is what I have left to seek “ The walk is a stalking-horse for ‘reverie ‘ . This shows that the existent intent of the walk is to run into yourself and larn to cognize yourself better. Rousseau is seeking cognition of his ain individuality in all its dimensions: his bosom, his ground, his imaginativeness… But the walk is non merely a physical agency of come ining within oneself, it is the manner for Rousseau to link with nature, vegetation is one of his activities to make so. Indeed as noted by Raymond the lone Walker engaged in a punctilious exercising of observation of workss experiences a preparative phase. This avocation it is a springboard to wing in his ‘Reveries ‘ . During the walk, the point is non the diverseness of the outside universe, but the diverseness of the universe within which it provides entree. The term “ lone ” is the lone 1 who can hold with the noun “ Walker ” as the intent of the walk is to make a province of solitariness from which may originate reveries and fanciful joys of oneself.

h. THE REREADING

Indeed, Rousseau says composing his texts in order to better cognize himself but besides to bask himself by reading them once more – “ their reading will remind me the sugariness I tasted when composing ” . Resurrecting these ideas gives him the great feeling of being in being. To understand the enjoyment that Rousseau hopes to experience from reading his ain Hagiographas, the analogue with the vegetation may be utile. During his walks, Rousseau picks flowers and workss and so places them in his herbarium. And when Rousseau leafs through his herbarium, a batch of memories come to his caput. Looking at a particular works, Rousseau is so transported, in the beautiful topographic point where he picked this works. The works becomes a “ memorable mark ” , as so competently said the theoritician of litterature, Starobinski. The importance of vegetation in Rousseau ‘s life is therefore all the thoughts that are recalled to his head when he opens his herbarium. His aggregation of memories has the same map as the 1 he assigns to his herbarium. In rereading these texts which tell of memories of walks and dreams that accompanied them, Rousseau relives the strength of keepsake. La world for the poet becomes the universe of imaginativeness accessible through the reveries, and the ultimate felicity is non to woolgather, but retrieving the dream and the feeling that he has left, as if the memory of the keepsake doubled the pleasance. That is the manner Rousseau defines his philosophical vision of felicity.