The Geometry of Solitude

I have always been suspicious of the bird’s-eye view. There is something inherently arrogant about looking down on a scene, as if the observer is detached from the gravity that pulls at everyone else. It feels like a way to simplify a life, to turn a person’s messy, complicated journey into a mere pattern on the ground. I wanted to resist this one, to tell myself that it was just a clever trick of perspective, a way to make a mundane walk look like a grand design. But the longer I stared, the more the artifice fell away. The path didn’t look like a map anymore; it looked like a choice. It reminded me that we are all just small, singular points moving through spaces that were built long before we arrived, following lines we didn’t draw. It is a lonely thought, but there is a strange, quiet dignity in it. Why do we insist on believing that our path is a straight line when it is so clearly a winding one?

Rafael Lorenzo de Leon has captured this feeling in his photograph titled Brick Road. He manages to turn a simple walk into a meditation on our place in the world. Does the path look like a burden or a relief to you?