"Industry and utility are the angels of death who, with fiery swords, prevent man's return to Paradise. . . . And in all parts of the world, it is the right to idleness that distinguishes the superior from the inferior classes. It is the intrinsic principle of aristocracy."
The flaneur's tendency to observe is what sets him apart. Being juxtaposed between distance and involvement. He is a part of it, although he steps aside to critique. He loathes, he loves, he is not sure whether he is aroused or disgusted by the sites around him. Today, the flaneur is not a cosmopolitan man from Paris. He is the blogger, the photographer, the graphic designer, advertiser, the DJ, the promoter, the musician, the guy on Twitter in the coffee shop. He is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, sampling the city. He is the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of extremes. Despite the destruction around him, he chooses to view urbanity as picturesque.
We don't identify with what we don't know, but we are this. At least, this is what I am. I embrace self exaltation. I don't know what I am doing with it, but I know that I am doing it.
That's why I started this, after all.
