Stone Walkways

Yesterday night after a very productive session of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, I wandered home wondering what sort of object I should choose for my upcoming blog.

It shouldn’t be too hard, I think about stuff like this all the time. I just need to think of something good tonight so I can move fast on it in the morning. Paperclips, hair, bouncy balls, backpacks? Then, as I walked through the darkness staring pensively down at my feet, my subject hit me like the solid rock it was, Of course, stone walkways!

A stone walkway is one of the most unappreciated objects we make use of on a regular basis. Every day I walk to class, to the library, to town always focused on the task at hand, never thinking about my feet and weight grinding into the stone beneath me. Even when I look down I never see the stone. All I see is the reflection of my plans and fears against the gray slate.

For us humans’, walking becomes so ingrained that we move to our targets unconsciously, never aware of the stone that supports us. It is very symbolic of how we humans can get so obsessed with our daily routine that we lose sight of the various objects around us and the stories they have to tell.

It is almost tragic how stone walkways are so ignored after all they have done for us. It was the paved road which made the roman armies the unstoppable force they were as they could quickly travel to strike at their enemies or reinforce their territory. After they were built, stone pathways granted us a path through the dense trees, the thick brush, and the winding slopes. They allowed us to walk to our work without running our legs through the mud. Without stone pathways we would not have been able to make use of carts, carriages, and later cars and cargo trucks due to the rugged, rocky terrain. In these ways, the stone walkways gave us the ability to drift to our work, oblivious to our environment. Ironic how its function has made us oblivious to the work it does for us as it is part of the environment itself.

There is something very symbolic about stone pathways. It invokes the idea of a worker who has and continues to work extremely hard for the benefit others and is not only ignored by them but is literally stepped upon. It is a notion that the Latino workers who fuel our agriculture, the Chinese women who sew our shoes, and the soldiers who fight our wars may be able to understand. In the end however, stone does not speak, touch, laugh, cry, or complain. They just silently and diligently bare our weight as our shoes chip away at their surface.

Perhaps the stone are the servants of Atlas himself, the titan who upholds the massive earth on top his shoulders. Silently suffering our weight so that we preoccupied living don’t fall. Never to hear the words “thank you” in response.