Whether you live in a city, town, or even a village, the space you occupy can be repressive or enabling--often a mixture of both. The choices we make within these varied spaces are often automatic and habitual, but this was not always the case. Think back to when you first came to Edmonton (or you first began moving throughout the city), every freeway, road, and side street were possible paths to your destination. There was no set trail beyond the dizzying flow of traffic.
Now, things are are different. What was once a barrage of bifurcating paths has become a seamless passage from A to B: the morning commute, Century Park to Clareview, the High Level Bridge--each is a human development that has regulated our interactions. Left turn, drive straight, left turn, drive straight, right turn, park; next stop: clareview; accelerate, slow, accelerate, slow.
These constructions make our lives easier, they facilitate movement--red light, green light--decreasing the risk of chaos entering our lives. However, protection comes at a price: safety necessitates stagnation, speed necessitates decreased friction. If we want to blaze through the city towards our next point of interest, we must surrender out claim to happenstance and interaction--"Don’t touch me, I have places to go."
As Edmontonians (as North Americans for that matter) we’re busy people. Families, work, school, and events all vie for our time, each doing its part to force us into a repetitive harmony with the city. Change can be hard, but it isn’t impossible. Your life only becomes fully regimented when you don’t even consider the possibility of other options: there is more than one path and speed is not always necessary.
I’m tempted to simply employ the phrase ‘take the road less travelled’ but I think it misses the mark. In order to take the road less travelled we must first ‘go off the beaten path’--experiment--or, even better, make your own paths.
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