HIKIKOMORI BOOMER
Ten thousand steps a day is just an overrated myth.
The most recent studies claim it, too. Even in walking, the substance is consistency, not quantity. The only thing is: plan ahead.
Of course, in fifty-two square meters of mixed home-work use, mental training is the basis. Circumstances regardless. And as the “circumstance” being is the hard-boiled Milanese freelancer powered with claustrophobia from the very beginning, you’re delivered out-of-the-box cocktails by a rider to face relentless merry meetings on Zoom…
What a beginner. Real pros keep their gin in the fridge.
Endgame. Nothing has happened.
You just have to learn to move though standing still.
The basic rule is: six times twenty-two. Plus five, or plus eighteen, as a variable.
Twenty-two steps, six floors. It means one hundred and thirty-two steps, both to go down and go up: two hundreds and sixty-four steps in full (though the up ones should count more, especially from the fourth floor on). Add ten more — the five-steps-flight stairs to the front door — whenever you go out: two hundreds and seventy-two. Or, add thirty-six (eighteen plus eighteen): the ones to get to the garbage room. Which takes to a round fulfillment, as the final figure is three-hundred.
In the end, simply by varying the recycling drop, you have three-hundreds, tough and initially challenging steps a day. Which, thanks to a method upgrade, has quickly turned into five-hundred and twenty-eight: because mail pickup entails a pretty good (let’s hope we never stop: bottocks and thighs thank you).
The increasing pressure of the couriers leads to a further level shift. ’Cause, out of compassion and sympathy, you leap down by lift but… Here are five plus five plus one hundred and thirty-two and hell, at the end of the day you might gratify yourself with a treat — a bitable or drinkable one, depending on the whim.
You get the “real pro level” in the very moment you realize, only by monitoring the evening delivery and determining the exact time, you’re able to go down by foot to pick up the order. One hundred and thirty-seven steps (booyah!). And if it’s sushi and it doesn’t get cold, bingo! You sloooowly trudge on your way back up all those steps through.
There was a time when I would have found it a waste of time.
There was a time when I didn’t have time.
Actually, more complex is the issue of walking. As you can’t go out every day, you have to plan your own routes. The mental ones, too.
On the outdoor front, it becomes strategic to plan centered outings to procure food and sunshine.
Never has the term “Points of sale” used in marketing sounded more appropriate: a clever map of the stores allows both blitzes or lazy turns, connecting subsequent dots, walking innocently along a variable route.
My two main targets are seven hundred and a kilometer away, a kilometer distant one from another: by going first to the crowded one, thanks to the bonded queue I’m giving myself the perfect alibi to move to the quieter one. By the end, after screwing around a bit, I cash out a three-kilometers-long triangle with the least expense. Which means five thousand very remarkable steps.
Here lies the pro level, too.
If I turn for the newsstand (a harmless and blessed target), the daily outing turns into a square and I add two times seven hundred and fifty meters — aka one thousand two hundred and fifty steps — round trip. This way, my yard time provides four kilometers and a half, aka seven thousand five hundred steps.
Circumstances affect health in unexpected ways.
Of course: you can’t do it every day. So you have to sharpen the inside frontline.
There’s an unexpected waiting list for foldable treadmills. In the meantime, I can optimize my actions by contrast. Increase them, extend them. Practice and meditation.
Why bring everything to the table at once? Not a chance. Distance kitchen-to–dinner room table with a plate: twice twelve steps and back (if you stop eating “set,” that’s the sad end). Table-to-cloth closet: nine steps; closet-to–table, put the cloth down, nine more. Table-kitchen for silverware and back, another round for the glass, and then the salad, and whatever… Easy task to get to hundred eighty four steps, aka a hundred valuable meters.
And after that, the cleaning up.
And then you apply the rule to everything.
To say.
In rosy years, I chose outdoor floors. Was it my fate to trace paths in the gray single-fire tiles?
A long ago, I’d feel lost.
A long ago, I was lost.
A long ago, I didn’t have my time.
Ssst! Something must have happened.
At last, it’s all silent, now.
Author’s note: I am Italian and write in Italian, this translation was done with commitment and heart. I hope the soul of my story will reach you (though maybe with some mistakes, alas!).
