TRACTUS

There are landscapes where you can see for hours. Plains, steppe, flat country where a village on the horizon takes all afternoon to reach. Walking through them, you begin to feel your own size.

At first it is uncomfortable. We are used to rooms, streets and screens, things built to our measure. Out there nothing is. The wind does not know your name.

Marcus Aurelius wrote about how small the corner of the earth is where each of us lives. He was the most powerful man of his time when he wrote it, in a private notebook, as a reminder to himself.

Being small can be a relief.

The worries that fill a day look different against a hundred kilometres of grass.

Some of them do not survive the walk. You come back to your room, your street, your screen. They are the same as before. For a while you are a little lighter in them.