A desire for the path of least resistance…almost

A desire path is an unofficial route, or trail, worn into the ground by the repeated passage of people or animals. In the urban landscape, a desire path will be worn where a carefully planned, but perhaps convoluted, footpath takes the long way round, and people simply cut that aesthetic route short. Desire paths can occur even where no path exists at all and that is usually true with the paths wild animals create in their landscape. The obvious rhetorical question is why follow that winding path, when a shortcut across the grass is so much quicker? People generally don’t. Few people take the long way round, but the shortcut is rarely a straight line But, it’s not quite so clearcut. Actual desire paths are rarely a straight line across the patch from A to Z. Although it would make sense to walk in a straight line this rarely happens. People, and animals, do not necessarily take the shortest route between the starting and end point. We see the other side, but we endlessly calibrate…