It's easy to lose your perspective when you're living in a big city. You walk out your front door and are immediately bombarded by tall buildings and the constant sound of car horns and bikes and screaming babies. Then you walk to where you're going, do whatever business you may need to do there, and walk back to where you live. Of course I'm oversimplifying the process a bit, but this has essentially been my daily life for the last two months. I wake up. I go to class. I might go to the gym, but besides that and the bi or tri-weekly trips to Tesco, I go from my flat to campus and back again.
Needless to say this progression can get rather tiresome and annoying. Why do I waste so much of my day inside? Why do I feel trapped in such an amazing place? While it's impossible to dispel all of these feelings, I have found that walking is the best way to get rid of them. So I woke up today and saw the beautiful weather outside (sunny and about 50 degrees) and thought that it would be nice after my lone class was over at 1PM to just go for a walk. Yet my attempts to find someone else to go with me proved fruitless--apparently I got my essays done a lot earlier than most and most of my friends are now locked inside weathering the impending academic storm. This got me rather discouraged, because along with feeling trapped in the flat, I often feel like I have no one to talk to.
But with all of that aside I decided to be brave. As 1:00 struck I left the Chrystal MacMillan Building and found the weather to be much colder and grayer than I had expected. But this didn't hold me back. I proceeded to walk to the Royal Mile and all the way down to its foot, where you can find the Scottish Parliament Building and Holyrood Palace. I got there, and just sat for a moment, contemplating the week so far and the rest of the week to come. I felt like this might be enough to quench my philosophical thirst, but thankfully I decided to press on.
Salisbury Crags are a set of hills on the Southwest side of Edinburgh. Among them is Arthur's Seat, an ancient chunk of volcanic rock which when climbed gives one spectacular 360 degree views of Edinburgh and everything around it. However, were still a bit tired from running yesterday, so I decided to hike a smaller crag whose walking path goes from Holyrood Palace back to the West. Am I ever glad that I did this.
It was during this walk that I began to think about perspective. I've had a hard time as of late keeping my mind here in Edinburgh--due to the recent sale of my childhood home, the need to find an internship for the summer, as well as the huge mixed bag of emotions that comes with the nearing completion of college. But taking a solitary walk can change your perspective a lot. The Bible is filled with instances of people doing just that. Whether it be Jesus' time in the wilderness, the Transfiguration or even Moses going up Mount Sinai to receive the 10 commandments, there is something very profound about climbing and thinking. For me, it gave me the chance to see how little I really was, and how trivial a lot of my worries really were. Just climbing a few minutes gave me a huge view of Scotland. I was able to see all of the landmarks across the city, but more importantly I could see the snowcapped mountains in the distance, the North Sea, as well as small towns and villages for miles and miles and miles. I was able to appreciate the beauty of the place that I'm in, and also get a better grip of the vast amount emotion that I'm currently dealing with.
Perspective is an important thing, especially when you lose it. You can feel like you're the only one that matters; that the world is just comprised of you. You can feel like no one else cares what you're thinking, or that you're trapped in the place that you are. But sometimes all you need to do is stretch your legs and challenge your soul to think more deeply and broadly. Sometimes all you need to do is escape the hustle and bustle of your life and your surroundings and let your mind do the talking. It may not solve everything in the end, but being able to see yourself as just one small piece of a cosmic puzzle is both terrifying and liberating. Sometimes all you need to do to find perspective is climb.
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