Desire paths, Macfarlane reminds us, are the lines worn into grass and earth by our feet, the tracks of our own insistence—routes chosen not by planners or engineers, but by pulse, by yearning, by the stubborn logic of bodies that seek the shortest, softest, or most meaningful way. They are maps made by desire itself, etched against the rigidity of pavements and signage.

And yet—what of the other paths we take, those invisible but no less real?

Now and then, “doing” life seems like a kind of bulldozed trail: a blur of movement without pause, a half-life trampled under urgency. The world urges us to move like machines—”faster, harder, now!” But the rush leaves no time to register the aftermaths: the broken ground, the wounded who lie unnoticed along the margins. To bulldoze is not to walk—it is to erase.

There is no growth in that blind momentum. Growth asks for reflection. For a decompression, then an inflation—lungs filling, spirit buoyant again. It takes a lot to walk differently, to resist the world’s asphalt logic and instead listen for the rustle of another way.

Perhaps to live imaginatively is to step off the sanctioned route. To notice where others have pressed through the meadow, quietly laying down a new track. To walk guided not by deadlines but by stars, not by the whip of the clock but by the lift of the forest breeze.

A desire path is not mindless. It is not convenience alone. It is the earth remembering the press of countless wanderers who refused to obey the grid. It is the body saying, 'Here, this way, this feels right.'

Maybe the task is not to bulldoze, but to wander, to dérives . To participate in the world imaginatively, one step at a time, leaving behind not scars, but slender traces—curves of longing, lines of care, trails where others might also find their way.