SPEECH TITLE: Are we connected or isolated?

In the age of smartphone, we are seemingly getting closer and closer with one another. We can talk to anyone on the earth , with the help of applications, like Line , Zoom or Skype.

It seems that we have overcome the limit of geographical distance. Even if you are alone in an isolated island, no problem. You can enjoy chatting with your family through iphones.

So, we are connected. No distance. There is no wall that is separating us.

Is that so?

When I get on a train  or a bus, I find most of the people getting absorbed in the screen of their own smartphones. They seem to be in their own psycological space. 

Even though we share the same physical space , we are not connected. We are, in a sense, isolated. The distance seems to be getting greater and greater as the technology progress.

I really feel afraid that someday the younger generation might realize the vulnerability of living in the cyber space and get lost, wondering WHERE AM I?

The more we get into a cyber space, the more unstable we might get. We might be eroding our ground on which we stand.

When I was in university, I majored in philosophy. I had an feeling of unstability with my identity. Where am I ? Where I stand? What makes me unique as I? 

Feeling uneasy, I started one thing. Walking travel.

Walking from one place to another place, all day long, under the sky. Pitching a tent in the open air. Just feeling the vastness of the physical space. The smell of the wind. The trivial change of sunlight touching my skin. Everything the actual space shows me.

Using my own body, moving through the vast physical space,  I could feel something solid. I AM RIGHT HERE.  

It was a certain feeling that reassured me. It was  much much more reassuring than ideological understanding like “cogito ergo sum”, which is a proverb that French philosopher once wrote, meaning I THINK THEREFORE I AM.  

It’s not that simple, sir! I would say  :-)

Plus, walking travel delivered me  something more amazing feeling. The sky is with me, the wind is with me. All the things surrounding me are connected. And co-exist.  I am just a part of this profound space.

Ive been enjoying this style of travel for more than 20 years. Ive connected the path  from Kagoshima to Fukushima , and branching out from the spots I have visited.
Now, I have my own Googlemap in my brain ;-)  I can reproduce the scenery Ive watched along the route, linking all the way from Kagoshima to Fukushima, stretching out about  1600km.

In the age of cyberspace, the importance of physical space is also increasing, I guess. To acquire an actual feeling of being connected to people, nature, world, we should get back to the nature.

We are living in a world which connects us and separates us simultaneously. So, when you  feel isolated or unstable, I highly recommend you to start this.

Walking travel.