To walk a city led by your senses rather than a destination is to awaken to the city and, possibly, to yourself. It’s an opportunity to expand your capacity for wonder, to discover and delight in things you might have missed had you been aiming to get somewhere. Alone in a crowd, you can take a break from who friends and family expect you to be. You can be yourself, or “off stage,” to borrow the sociologist Erving Goffman’s term. You have room to go at your own pace, to let your eye and mind wander, to stumble upon new ideas, even self realizations.
By Stephanie Rosenbloom
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