I recently stumbled onto the wonderful expression: goin’ Walden. According to the Urban Dictionary, the term “goin’ Walden” expresses “the act of leaving the electric world and city and retreating to the country to obtain spiritual enlightenment or just to reflect for a while.” The name derives from the classic text by Henry David Thoreau. As I watch students fixate on their cell phone screens, or I wonder what all the thumbnail images of people are thinking on Zoom calls, or as I respond to one more text, email, or message, I wonder about the possibility of goin’ Walden. The wireless world seems to make us even more hardwired to remain in, seek out, and engage the electric world and city. And while that world possesses promise and possibility, it is also fraught with problems and pitfalls? Skimming a recent Harper’s magazine, the image at right made me want to run as far as possible from the electric world and city. The invention reflects the design for The Third Eye, a robotic eye developed by Min-Wook Paeng, an industrial designer and student at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. The eye beeps to alert people of obstacles while they are walking and looking at their phones. Get me to Walden! To read more, click here. . .