Nonmotorized Trails on Indefinite Hiatus
Follow me on social media for photographs.
FYI: If you are interested in my travel/nature/bird photography, you will have better luck following me on social media. At present, I have two public accounts where I sometimes post photographs: Instagram (@imwithheron) and, as of a few weeks ago, BlueSky (@carfreebirdnoticer.bsky.social).
As for this blog, Nonmotorized Trails, it was a test of a new format for publicly sharing some of my photography in connection with anecdotes about car-free living (which, as a reminder, is a lifestyle choice that I adopted to free myself from a major source of stress and anxiety, and which never had anything remotely to do with a desire to live sustainably). However, I never really got into it, and around the time that the last installment was “due,” I decided that I would prefer the website format to the blog format if I want a space to share photo galleries in addition to relevant information (e.g. tips and advice related to car-free/car-lite islands in Europe, car-free astrotourism in Europe, or car-free nature adventures within the city of Columbus, Ohio).
And then I did something personally liberating (although not nearly as liberating as back in 2017 when I sold my car and never looked back…): I withdrew from my one outstanding commitment related to environmental ethics, thereby closing a chapter of my life which had been a false start. The latter is another story, and one that needn’t detain us, but the upshot is that withdrawing from said commitment caused me to feel blissfully free to recreate my interests as a researcher, writer, and scholar from scratch. This is also not the appropriate venue to describe my latest research agenda (e.g. issues surrounding paleoecology, paleoart, and the limits of knowability about what the past “looked like”) — except to say that my personal research agenda is not on the topic of noticing and photographing birds, sauntering, or visiting quiet islands. I still do all of those things, mind you, and I enjoy them immensely. The point is that I do not study those things from a theoretical or philosophical perspective — and, qua writer, I have always preferred the style of analytic philosophy to personal blogging.
I have been procrastinating on posting the announcement that I’m putting this blog on hiatus, because it felt like I should combine with something substantive, as well as a collection of carefully culled photographs — but that’s exactly the sort of work I just can’t seem to get into, especially when I am missing the life of the mind, and remembering just much there is to research, learn, and contemplate… when I’m not out sauntering and noticing birds, that is — the off-screen life that always comes first!
I might or not might post new installments of Nonmotorized Trails in the future. If I do, it will be entirely at my leisure, and I will make no attempt to adhere to a schedule.
Thank you to those who have read and appreciated (any of) the first four posts.
