DECALOGUE OF THE PERFECT FLÂNEUR
How to move through the city as a true flâneur, or flâneuse? Here you have a "decalogue" extracted from the book Flâneur. The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris.
I. You must move through the city at random – left or right with no reason, with no destination.
II. Ignore the tourist guides. Forget the stereotypes, the nonsense you’ve seen on television or read in the newspapers.
III. Escape from the banality of everyday life. Escape from the memories and the ghosts of the interior life.
IV. Reject the rules of production and consumption. Consecrate your life to the moment, to ephemeral things.
V. Train your eye – unmask the superficial in the profound, spot the profound in the superficial.
VI. Train your body – keep going for several hours while drifting without nourishment and without rest.
VII. Listen to the voice of the world – immerse yourself in external reality to the point of becoming one with it and, ultimately, vanishing.
VIII. Abandon yourself to the crowd. Make the most of anonymity, of the sensation of emptiness and impunity that the big city can provide.
IX. Do not neglect the suburbs, the anomalous and marginal spaces. Walk the streets that a tourist would never take.
X. Feel yourself to be free, open to the imponderable. Don’t lose your way, lose yourself in the city streets.
