Whenever I see a desire path in a park, where an organic trail has been formed through grass or dirt or gravel away from a park’s intentional route, I stop and examine it. Why is it going in that direction? When was it formed? Indeed, what’s always missing from such paths is an origin. The first steps alone were by no means enough to establish a natural alternative route. Grass can resist and recover from the initial set of steps, and the same goes for those that soon follow (the second set, the third set, the fourth, and so on). Yet, over time, the grass finally surrenders, and a way from A to B is permanently carved into the ground.
In this sense, a desire path presents a mystery that’s much like the one that shrouds the origins of life. We cannot doubt the existence of incipient steps from abiotic materials (rocks, pools, mud, and so on) to living organisms (bacteria, plants, animals), but they’ve been erased by time. All we know is that the stuff found in abiotic beings is the same as the stuff found in living beings (the result: the world lines of life). As for the transition from one to the other? God only knows.
What we do know is that some desire paths are practical, and others are not. For example, the desire path that recently appeared across the street from Judkins Park Station, which opened at the end of March, is without a doubt practical. The planned and paved path presents a long way from A to B, whereas the desire path offers a direct, and therefore more rational, connection. But there are other desire paths that appear to be nonsensical. They offer no direct or apparent benefit. Something of this kind can be found in Cal Anderson Park, which has a planned and graveled path that, if you are facing east, runs on the left side of a bulky trash can and a foot-pounded path that runs on its right side. Because both ways appear equally suitable, and equally close to the garbage can, the function of the desire path is something of a mystery. Nevertheless, when walking to or from the Stranger office on 11th Avenue, I always pick the desire path over the planned one. For reasons I can’t explain, I trust the former much more than the latter.
Now, what I’ve never seen in Seattle, however, is a desire path that emerged because of some collective superstition or taboo, such as the devil gates in Russia. (A devil gate is a triangle formed over a sidewalk by power poles—to avoid bad luck, people prefer to walk around the triangle rather than through it.) But I’ve come across desire paths in parks near to or around Lake Washington whose value is evidently more aesthetic than useful. The worn path might present a commanding view of the body of water or the towers of Bellevue.
Ultimately, what a desire path presents is the workings of a social mind. These trails have no pioneers, no discoverer, no glory-seeking Christopher Columbus. No one can really claim them as their own. The path was made by you and a whole bunch of people you’ll likely never see in your life. The way from A to B is visible, but all of the feet that collectively made it are as invisible as ghosts.
Now, how’s one to form a philosophy of desire paths? The best place to start, as far as I can tell, is with a concept elaborated by an almost forgotten late-20th-century philosopher, Michel Serres. The concept is called “hodology,” which is derived from the Greek word hodos, which means a path, and is the root of the word method. Serres’s way of philosophizing is not only poetic but also hodological, meaning he thought in terms of paths that might lead thought to a known or unknown destination. To give one of many examples, he writes in Genesis: “It is true that this path is universal. So much is gained there, gained there so often, that it would be foolish to take a different one.” Or in Parasite: “Our living and inventive path follows the fringed, capricious curve where the simple beach of sand meets the noisy rolling in of the waves. A simple and straight method gives no information; its uselessness and flatness (or platitude) is finally calculable.”
We agree with Serres’s commitment to paths, but because he was equally committed to originality—always looking for paths that are enigmatic or rarely explored—he placed a high value on, to quote Robert Frost, “the road less taken.” But one who loves desire paths is fine with those that are functional and those that are dysfunctional, those that are worldly and those that are metaphysical or superstitious or aesthetic. One even loves paths that emerge from the desire of squirrels and other synanthropic animals. A true philosophy of desire paths must be as democratic as all of the feet that made and went their way.
