Walking the path

Some years ago I encountered the phrase “the path is made by walking.” At the time, I don’t believe the inspiration for or source of that phrase were known to me. Recently, I’ve found a poem that looks suspiciously like a basis for the phrase, although it doesn’t use the term “path.”

can you see the path?

Photo by J. Harrington

As I recall, the path phrase came up in the context of a conversation about the existence of many paths through the woods. The conversation occurred among proponents of various green building certification programs and included a debate about which was “best.” It turned out that we failed to define the basis of best. Did we mean least negative environmental impact? Maximum benefit for minimum cost? Was there an inexpensive way to compare options? Would the answers be the same fo single family and multi-family housing? Would the same strategies work as well in an urban, suburban, exurban and rural setting?

The debate / conversation did ultimately resolve into an acknowledgement that there are indeed many paths through the development and construction woods and that those paths were made by walking. We also noted that, as important as any other point, it’s critical to walk the talk, i.e., no “greenwashing.” 

All of the preceding is by way of background I’m expecting to find useful as we wend our way between now and the elections of 2024. The best ideas aren’t very helpful if they can’t be implemented. (Speaker McCarthy is overly familiar with this problem.) Solutions and changes need to be part of a system or they may end up being counterproductive by cancelling each other. Integrating separate solutions can often produce synergistic benefits, something we rarely, if ever, attain with our current political system. Solutions or changes that are focused primarily on near term benefits are no longer adequate. We really need to change not only the actors, but also much of our political system if we hope to leave our descendants a sustainable planet on which they can thrive. Last (for now), and far from least, we need to relearn how to listen to each other as we walk into our shared future.

When the colonists were drafting a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution, they incorporated (cultural appropriation?) a number of concepts from the Iroquois Confederacy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Native Americans didn’t have numerous concepts that could help US find a better way forward for the next seven generations.

Now, here’s what I think was the source of the path made by walking phrase:

[Traveler, your footprints]

By Antonio Machado
Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney

Traveler, your footprints

are the only road, nothing else.

Traveler, there is no road;

you make your own path as you walk.

As you walk, you make your own road,

and when you look back

you see the path

you will never travel again.

Traveler, there is no road;

only a ship's wake on the sea.

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