Meet the Author: Torbjørn Ekelund, author of In Praise of Paths
Walking as your sole means of transportation must have been a big transition, although you said it only took a matter of days. What was the biggest adjustment for you?
The biggest adjustment for me was that I needed to establish a new conception of time. It only took me a few days to get used to not being able to drive a car, but my decision to walk everywhere, even when I could take the bus or the subway, forced me to create a whole new schedule for myself. I needed to start everything earlier: start walking an hour before a scheduled meeting, if it took place on the other side of town, for example. And I always had to make sure I carried a backpack for grocery shopping, etcetera. Now, if I don’t have a backpack, I feel like I’m missing an important part of my body. And when I see people that drive their cars to the supermarket (which almost everybody does), it seems almost absurd to me.