Young Man Walking With his Head Between a Set of Headphones in a Small Town

I thought about this a couple days ago when I was home for a brief visit, and after a nice evening walk, I felt inspired.

It's easy to take for granted the ability to walk. Think about it.

It's also easy to take how we walk for granted. One of my favorite pastimes used to be walking outside at night while listening to music. These days, I don't do it very often, as for obvious reasons, I won't do it in the city. As much as I enjoy walking freely without listening to music, sometimes it's better with music...

There's the audio sensation: some albums just sound better through headphones. If they're high enough quality headphones, you'll hear things you don't hear through a stereo. You'll notice more subtle differences, more layers of music, the tightness of those layers, and wonder how they all manage to stay together...

And then there's an indescribable sensation. This is by no means a "great album" by most standards, but "Dosage" by Collective Soul (you thought I was going to write about Pearl Jam, didn't you?), if listened through headphones on a warm, breezy nighttime walk, takes me places...places far beyond the small town I used to frequent. I sometimes would get this strange feeling like I was walking through a movie about my life (maybe it's a bit arrogant to assume anyone would make a movie about me, but whatever), perhaps to a soundtrack. Sometimes I'd be imagining seeing the band live. And other times, I was just thinking about anything but where I was, what I was listening to or what I was doing. Lost.

And then there's the complete opposite side, walking without headphones, and being completely aware of your surroundings (or at least trying to be). The smell of smoke from the hookah bar down the street, a light breeze flowing through the trees in the park, the sounds of dog tags jingling from both sides of the street, your eyes constantly adjusting to the changing light temperatures with each house you pass...it's quite the different animal, especially if you're in a forest.

Maybe it's for the better that I'm "forced" to be aware of my surroundings. I could go into depth and get all philosophical about zoning out, not wanting to be aware, etc, but not tonight. At any rate, walking is kinda awesome. It was a great way to end an otherwise "blah" Monday.