Principled Men True to Themselves

[Vung Tau, 4/26/25]

Yesterday, I walked three miles and sat in five cafés to write a 700-word article. I obviously don’t recommend this technique, it’s just my way of working. Moving between cafés allows me to physically unwind while focusing my thoughts further. For most of human history, we walked endlessly. Stuck in a steel box or spending nearly all our time immobile while staring at screens are recent aberrations. Hippocrates, “Walking is man’s best medicine.” Before yesterday, men cured themselves hourly.

Snuffing out thoughts with recorded sounds has yielded selfie snapping zombies with cool tattoos and nose rings making duck faces. The body alterations hint at primitive yearnings minus Thoreauan inconveniences.

(This makes me think of Katie of Boston who thought Hank a total pussy for relying on his mommy and unable, like her, to sleep outside during an Alaskan winter. To be fair, the state was only annexed five years after Henry’s death, but nothing prevented this snake gazing softie from walking to, say, Chiputachikwan or Umingmaqautik. Lovely Katie often took Greyhound. I hope she’s doing well.)

At 6:04 today, I’m sitting outside Café Thanh Trúc to escape its broadcast garbage. This morning’s version sounded like a military march. A shirtless, barefoot man just walked by. I hear hacking sounds from a sidewalk butcher across the street. Waiting for their daily meat, four women gather around her. Though my legs aren’t yet meat, flies are attracted to them. Sharing my table, a just arrived stranger spits. Not a regular, I’ve probably intruded into his space, but I must hold my ground, for this article, even if garbage, must be written. Each man or beast follows his imperatives.

All that was preamble. I had to traverse 276 words to reach my theme.