Every man for himself...

Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable. The world, you realise, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow walkers know. Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. It's quite wonderful, really; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, far removed from the seats of strife. All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge.

At times, you become almost certain that you slabbed this road before, crossed this street yesterday, clambered into these people at least twice today already. But most of the time you don't think. Instead, your brain is like a balloon tethered with string, accompanying but not actually part of the body below. Walking for hours and miles becomes as automatic, as unremarkable, as breathing. At the end of the day you don't think. It's where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle. In a way, it would hardly matter.