So it’s best to walk alone, except that one is never entirely alone. As Henry David Thoreau wrote: ‘I have a great deal of company in the house, espe… - Frédéric Gros

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So it’s best to walk alone, except that one is never entirely alone. As Henry David Thoreau wrote: ‘I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.’ To be buried in Nature is perpetually distracting. Everything talks to you, greets you, demands your attention: trees, flowers, the colour of the roads. The sigh of the wind, the buzzing of insects, the babble of streams, the impact of your feet on the ground: a whole rustling murmur that responds to your presence. Rain, too. A light and gentle rain is a steady accompaniment, a murmur you listen to, with its intonations, outbursts, pauses: the distinct plopping of drops splashing on stone, the long melodious weave of sheets of rain falling steadily. It’s impossible to be alone when walking, with so many things under our gaze which are given to us through the inalienable grasp of contemplation.

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About Frédéric Gros

Frédéric Gros (born 30 November 1965) is a French philosopher.

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Peut-être les moines qu’on appelle « gyrovagues » exaltaient-ils particulièrement notre condition d’étranger éternel : marchant sans cesse de monastère en monastère, sans être fixé – ils n’ont pas tous disparu ; il en reste, paraît-il, quelques-uns encore sur le mont Athos : ils marchent leur vie durant sur les sentiers étroits des montagnes, tournant en rond, s’endormant à la chute du jour dans l’endroit où leurs pieds les a portés ; ils passent leur vie à marmonner des prières en marchant tout le jour, sans destination ni but, ici ou là, au hasard du croisement des sentiers, à tourner, retourner, ils marchent sans aller nulle part, illustrant par l’éternel cheminement leur état d’étrangers définitifs au monde d’ici-bas.

You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk.

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Il y a le silence des petits matins. Il faut partir très tôt en automne quand l’étape est longue. Tout est violet dehors, la lumière rampe sous les feuilles jaunes et rouges. C’est un silence attentif. On marche doucement au milieu des grands arbres sombres, encore enveloppés d’une légère nuit bleue. On a presque peur de réveiller. Tout chuchote faiblement.

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