Learning habit is understanding that i can get indoor complacent when i refuse to step out of the house for a very long time. And i find it hard to break out of this loop until i find myself hallucinating and it seems the mechanism feeding my memories has collided with my sense of imagination and i can no longer differentiate between what is real and imagined.

To avoid the mental strain that often accompany this state, i have recently made it a habit to step out of the house once every fortnight and a take a ride somewhere even if i have no sense of someplace to be. 

I try to separate this from the seldom occasions I spend with friends most of whom live very faraway. These walks often begin with a seemingly deliberate need to go downtown in search of something I could easily find nearby. I recently took an evening cab somewhere faraway in town to get an item I could have purchased at a shop a few minutes’ walk from the house. That small errand quickly became a detour to another side of town. I remember calling C that I was sightseeing in a popular motor park, observing the unfiltered rhythm of the streets where I sat among the levy collectors, and feeling the tempo of life that suddenly surrounds me.

I find it interesting how much of this walk helps me think and attenuate my disquietude, unfurling whatever has been wedged inside me. Suddenly, I gain clarity on a thought, or I’m struck by a better conclusion for an email draft, the concept for a story or blog, or even a fix to a bug in a project on my desk back home.

These scenes, with introspection, compound to create important and beautiful memories, and especially after a satisfying walk, and my body, electrified and charged out of its buildup inertia, or the stop by a restaurant on my way home to have a drink when the sun is low, or when I look out from the eatery window, and the golden light of twilight mounted behind palm trees that spread their fonds like goodbyes at the cars and motorists going home, the beautiful scenes of this city that I often miss because I’m mostly indoor.