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On the ‘silent walk’
My first post this May is an article share on what is referred to now as a ‘silent walk’. That means leaving your gadget at home or work to take walk whether in park, the city or your neighborhood. We all seem to be dependent on our gadgets these days, with many panicking when discovering they left their gadget. It’s as if their world has stopped without the gadget at hand.
Bull, M. (April 30, 2025) “The power of a “silent walk”,” Medium, https://blog.medium.com/the-power-of-a-silent-walk-93ffdd70dbcb [Last accessed: 02/05/2025]
To quote from the article:
“For many of us who rely on laptops, phones, and apps throughout the day, it can be easy to reach for those same devices when we need to relax — if they solve our productivity issues, the thinking goes, they must solve our stress, too. But just as spending the first hour of your day screen free will have an outsize effect on your inner peace, leaving the phone and headphone at home while you head out for a walk will return you to a saner place in record time.”
Granted that you bring your gadget for ’emergency purposes’, perhaps the key is not using it. Keep it in your pocket. Refrain from checking or glancing at the slightest temptation. It may be difficult at first but it will gradually build into your routine. And perhaps, too, you will feel a bit of liberation from these gadgets and reconnect with the world around you to help your well-being.
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On the importance of trees along streets
I’ve written before about the importance of having parks around a city or town. Here’s an article I recently read about the positive impacts of trees along streets:
Stimpson, A. (March 12, 2021) “Green health: a tree-filled street can positively influence depression, study finds,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/12/baltimore-study-trees-mental-health-study [Last accessed: 3/29/2021]
Tree-lined street somewhere in Antipolo City, Rizal
We often refer to cities as the urban jungle. Why not really, literally make cities as urban jungles by planting more trees and other plants where its possible to grow and nurture them. Gardens may be grown not just for flowers or aesthetics but for food. Perhaps architecture should deliberately be oriented for greens? Orchard Road in Singapore is much admired for its trees. Surely, similar streets in our country can be landscaped accordingly.
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On the need for more public spaces
Here’s a quick share of an article discussing the pandemic’s exposing the need for more public spaces:
Ionescu, D. (February 5, 2021) “The Pandemic Revealed Public Space as ‘Essential Infrastructure'”, Planetizen.com, https://www.planetizen.com/node/112044?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-02082021&mc_cid=4fac9821d0&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [Last accessed: 2/9/2021]
Quezon City is lucky to have the Quezon Memorial Circle, Parks and Wildlife and the University of the Philippines Diliman campus but it needs more public spaces given its size. UP should not technically be regarded as a public space as it is a school first and just happens to be blessed with a spacious campus. Pictured above is its academic oval with the Sunken Garden to the right.
Public spaces include parks and other open spaces that serve as breathing spaces or lungs for our cities and municipalities. A lot of people complained about being cramped up during the lockdowns and are now going out (others quite recklessly) even with the specter of Covid-19 still about us. In many old towns around the country, there are plazas and of course fields where people can go to while maintaining safe physical distancing. We certainly lack for these especially in highly urbanized cities. Rizal Park and its surrounding areas including Intramuros are not sufficient for dense Manila. In Taguig, you see a lot of people taking walks or exercising along the C5 service road. Its good that they actually have a linear park in Lower Bicutan and maybe parts of BGC where people can “decompress” from their cramped conditions where they reside but again, these may not be enough. Cities and municipalities need to allocate or build more public spaces. These should be deliberate developments to create such spaces (even small playgrounds scattered around a city would be a good start) for everyone’s well-being.
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Caught (up) in traffic 