Kevin McKeon writes...
I have this little farmhouse in the country that I escape to on weekends. This past weekend I was inspired to go for a run (okay, jog) – my first in probably 10 years. As I meandered down the road at a semi-leisurely pace, trying very hard not to pull anything my first day out, I couldn’t help but feeling, as I took in the sights and sounds around me, an odd sense of traveling down this route for the very first time. Which was really odd, since this particular road was one I’d driven down a thousand times before over the past 5 years. Oddly enough, though, I had never traveled it ON FOOT. As I groaned past old houses, stone walls, fences, barns, and fields that I’d seen million times, it was almost like I was seeing a whole new landscape. Did that front door always have that incredible hardware? Was that amazingly gnarly tree always there? The way that wall is build right into the landscape like it had always been there - never picked up on that. The smells, the sounds, the light on the pasture, the scent of the honeysuckle… I’d been by here so many times and yet, it all seemed somehow… different.. Much richer. More interesting. Full of detail I never knew was there. It was inspiring. And all because, for the first time, I wasn’t just passing through this space, I was a part of it. I was in it. Experiencing it firsthand. At a jogger’s pace. Not behind the wheel of a car shooting by at 40 miles an hour.
Culture is best absorbed the same way. At street level. Want to know what’s going on in the real world? Want to be inspired? Put down the cultural anthropology bibles, leave the research and the must-read reports and the trade pubs on the desk, close the advertising award books, get out of your intellectual SUVs, and get out there on foot. Be your own expert in the field. Form your own hypothesis’. Take a jog through the cultural landscape, and see a little something. Spend more time on the streets, in the bars, the clubs, the supermarkets, the parks, the malls, the office parks, the online communities… and don’t forget to look around (remember, it’s not a race, it’s a jog.) Take in the sights, the smells, the sounds, the details of our amazing, complex, and often bizarre culture. See the world up close. It’s really rich, fascinating, and full of detail. All of which is hard to see from a safe distance.
I, for one, plan on squeezing a few more cultural jogs into my regular weekly schedule.
Keep your fingers crossed I don’t pull a muscle.
Photograph by Belinda Lopez
Recent Comments