> We may think of baseball as America's national pastime, but in the 1870s and 1880s there was another sports craze sweeping the nation: competitive walking. "Watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport," Matthew Algeo says in his new book, Pedestrianism.
> During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pedestrianism, like running or horse racing (equestrianism) was a popular spectator sport in the British Isles. Pedestrianism became a fixture at fairs – much like horse racing – developing from wagers on footraces, rambling, and 17th century footman wagering.[1] Sources from the late 17th and early 18th century in England write of aristocrats pitting their carriage footmen, constrained to walk by the speed of their masters' carriages, against one another.[2] By the end of the 18th century, and especially with the growth of the popular press, feats of foot travel over great distances (similar to a modern Ultramarathon) gained attention, and were labeled "pedestrianism".
> Champagne was considered a stimulant. And a lot of trainers — these guys had trainers — advised their pedestrians to drink a lot of champagne during the race. They thought that this would give them some kind of advantage. The problem was a lot of these guys would drink it by the bottle. That definitely was not a stimulant to say the least.
yeah, only if you develop COPD; and, as the article points out, "These changes are not universal in smoking, however. Even with lifetime smoking, there is only a 50% chance of developing COPD."
Alcohol in various forms was thought to be beneficial. Wine was served to workmen and drunk by cyclists in earlier times. Not ... quite as effective as thought.
Well, not technically according to modern medicine. But it does remove inhibitions, which is sort of saying the same thing as letting you do more. The most common example being angry drunks who get upset over things they never would when they were sober, or noisy drunks who party harder. I'm not sure I'd be willing to walk 6 days straight without some alcohol to remove my inhibitions.
Early Tour de France riders would take a bottle of brandy with them and swig it. It was supposed to dull the pain of steep climbs. At some point that was abandoned.
This article makes some fantastic points. I find it sad that we force ourselves to have outwardly facing purpose to almost everything we do. Even if purposeless walking has the internal reason of more thought and creativity, we can't do that because there seems to be an over arching need to have an outward requirement to all activity (complete a project, get more exercise, fulfil some need, etc).
This was driven home forceful to me in elementary school, quite a lot of years ago but it stuck with me. A friend of mine, who is now a very successful medical doctor and still quite close to me to this day, would walk around the yard with me at any recess. All recess, every day. Sometimes we would say nothing, sometimes we would have long discussions. My principal pulled us in after a number of months and said "your aimless walking is unproductive and will lead to problems, play a sport or find a game and stop it." We didn't listen, and so far we have been very productive in life, and haven't caused too many problems at all.
Is this common in whatever country you're in? If this happened where I went to school, there'd be words at the PTA meeting. Your principal is some kind of control freak.
I agree with you. However, it may have been out of concern that they were being anti-social. There are better ways to address that concern than such a strongly and negatively worded reprimand. Subtlety may not have been that principal's strong suit.
Good question! I grew up in an upper middle class area of California: Thousand Oaks. I only went to school in public schools. From about 4th grade on there are great concern about students and conformity. Schools, principals, and even teachers were graded on how well students did in standardized testing, how well the students did in sports, and how many "state level" awards the students received. So, basically, if our goals were not in line with that, we were reprimanded by being told we would not "make it in this society". I remember very clearly being told by a teacher that I was destined to drive a street sweeper. This, of course, made me rebel more.
That being said, I can say many of the people in my peer group did conform to these standards and did become very successful. I can point at handfuls of my friends and acquaintances who went to school at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and many other highly rated schools on full ride scholarships. A number of them have successful careers in medicine, law, politics and even professional sports. So, I guess the proof is in the pudding, it does work.
No one ever spoke up at a PTA meeting because parents wanted their kids to succeed, and the thought process goes that if they followed the program, they would succeed.
Of course, we won't talk about the suicide rate at my high school...
I enjoy walking around a park near my house, and I find I can have some great ideas usually. I disagree with the 'no soundtrack' suggestion; I have found that listening to music does not stop the ideas from flowing. I also enjoy listening to Mixergy interviews while walking around this same park, Often if the interview is especially interesting, I end up extending my walk so that I don't miss any of it.
And then, at the end of the walk, I come back to reality and the peacefulness comes to an end, replaced with kids, business, other distractions. For a while though, I am in my own little world wandering around.
I usually try to bring a pen and paper with me to write ideas down, I find that typing the ideas into my phone is not as satisfying somehow.
Even in the city, walking without purpose can be done. During an unemployment spell in the 2008 meltdown, I did a lot of very long (2+ hour) walks with limited destinations in mind other than "Far North" or "Far South". I did them without soundtracks or texting. They gave me a much bigger appreciation for the city. Beauty doesn't just exist in the woods.
Cities are wonderful places for aimless walking! When I travel to a new city, my favorite thing to do is to leave 2-3 days at the beginning completely unplanned and just walk out the door of my room and start walking.
On a recent visit to SF, I was waiting for a friend to finish with work. He invited me to stay and hang out at his company cafeteria. When I declined, saying I'd rather go wandering, he and his friends looked at me like I was some kind of partially deranged maniac. I had a great time!
I can't agree more. Walking around a new city is a wonderful way to get to know and enjoy it. I worked for 2 weeks in Tokyo in the 80's, and I spent many summer nights just walking (3-4 hours a night).
Hell, that IS my vacation much of the time. I went to Osaka with no firm plans in mind, though I eventually checked out Kobe, Nara, and saw some of the local sights. It was a blast. I drank in some cool bars, chatted up cute Japanese girls, and ate in completely random, nearly hidden ramen shops. The same with Brisbane, Queensland a couple of years later.
When I was in college I'd go into New York City and just wander around. I walked from the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center (the original was still standing). A cool place to walk in (though overwhelming and a bit dangerous if you don't know where not to go).
It's gotten a lot safer - as long as you're in Manhattan you're pretty much fine unless you're drunk in the wrong spot at 3am.
I hear you on vacation walking. I never understood guided trips when there is so much fun to be had with random adventure. Similar to you I enjoyed both Japan and Australia quite a bit.
If anything, I think it's easier in the city. I don't really have to worry about walking back to my original location - wherever I end up, I can probably hop on public transportation and get back home.
I think being in the city actually enables me to walk more aimlessly than I would be able to elsewhere—several nights a week on my way home from the office I will walk somewhere at random, perhaps changing my path several times along the way, and when my legs are tired I can always get on the subway and ride home.
I love hiking in the mountains, but when I lived in the country I often wound up replacing aimless walking with aimless driving.
I'm not sure the purposelessness is necessarily the main point. On vacations, my favourite way to get around cities is always to walk. Even if you have a map and want to go somewhere specific, walking there gives you much more of a feeling of exploration and actually getting to know the place.
Awhile ago, I was robbed at gunpoint while walking through the West Village in Manhattan...I live on the east side but I always walk south along one of the main avenues, then back north, just because it's a nice walk and I also get inexplicably confused by the non-grid-iness of the west side streets. When I had trouble pointing out the exact corner that I was robbed on, the detective point blank asked me if I had made up the story of being robbed, to cover up for a botched meeting with a prostitute (which I guess is common on the west side or something?), because he just couldn't believe why I would walk such a convoluted route to get home.
Also...this is something I learned in high school after learning to drive...when I had to walk or be driven to places, I never paid much attention to what order the streets were in...and only after driving myself does their order become important in my mind. Also, the age of Google Maps makes remembering streets even more irrelevant...I think that was also a factor in the detective's skepticism of me being slightly confused about location. What can I say, Manhattan is a city that invites just walking around in a general direction.
Reminds me of a friend's response when her doctor asked if she exercised. She said, "On purpose?"
I understand her.
As a busy person, nothing is more boring and time consuming than exercising "on purpose". I ride my bike everywhere, always use the stairs, do my own cleaning, laundry, groceries, and cooking, and constantly jump to conclusions. That oughta be enough.
President Obama finds time to devote to exercise multiple times per week - I'm sure you and every other "busy" person can do that too if you really wanted to.
This is a strange article, because its content reads like anecdotal (European/Western) history combined with generic self-help advice. There is no evidence presented that people are "walking without purpose" less now than they used to - it seems to me that 17% of walks being "just to walk" is actually a fairly high percentage, but there's no point of comparison. Although people probably walk less now because we have more convenient modes of transportation, is the argument that a greater percentage of walks were purposeless in the past?
Treating "Great White Men" of the past as exemplars of how life used to be is ridiculous. Advising people to get out and walk for the sake of walking is great, but I don't think we need to pretend that we've lost a great source of creative thinking that used to be more universal.
17% seems like a really high percentage, actually. Also, without reading the linked study, I can't figure out whether it's 17% of all trips, or 17% of all walking trips that are "just to walk." If one out of five trips are for aimless relaxation, that sounds absurdly high.
If you're comparing the average survey respondent to your average independently wealthy 19th century author, there's a few pretty obvious reasons why people with normal jobs don't aimlessly walk all the time - such as a job and the appeal of aimlessly driving, which I'm sure scratches nearly the same itch.
The 17% figure also includes dog walking. For myself, the midnight walks with my dog have been very rewarding. Giving me time to think about things and reflect on the day. Although there are a good number of dog owners who see walking their dog as a chore, which is not the right attitude to have for being mindful.
Walking our dog always felt like a chore growing up. I'd attribute it to being young, but it's now many years later, they have a new dog (both dalmatians) and walking him when visiting is still a chore.
He's either on a leash (by law) pulling relentlessly, or he's free, needing vigilant watch. It's perfectly doable having him walk next to you, but he's still stressing out at everything and it seeps into your bones.
Might be many would benefit from taking walks like you do, I run instead, no patience for walking, but I probably should if only for the benefit of learning to be more patient.
The idea of doing something so unproductive and slow is really hard to get over, though.
> Might be many would benefit from taking walks like you do, I run instead, no patience for walking, but I probably should if only for the benefit of learning to be more patient.
One of the suggestions in the article is the walk mindfully. Unless you're familiar with usages of that term, it's not immediately clear what that means:
It's effectively suggesting meditation through walking. You shouldn't be able to take two steps without finding something marginally interesting to consider. That doesn't mean to write it down for later study, but just let it fill your mind for a moment, and then move on to the next interesting thing.
Walking is about getting to know the world by moving through it. That's a lot harder to do at the speed of a jog.
Additionally, walking around aimlessly in the city where I live, a lot of the time, is simply not a safe thing to be doing. While the article mentions some differences between our world, and the world of the creative thinkers, it leaves out to a certain extent that a lot of people live in densely populated cities with minimal access to green space. If I wanted to go for an aimless walk in the woods, I'd have to drive to the suburbs and find a forest preserve.
I got a lot of strange looks from white people in cars while walking through Capetown, SA. I could not imagine to live in a place where I were afraid to just walk where and whenever I want!
Until now, I never had any negative experiences, anywhere in the world because of walking. I'm male, though, I guess that's quite significant in many places.
Reminds me of another quote from C.S. Lewis (who was cited in the article) on the subject.
"Even on those rear occasions when a modern undergraduate is not attending some such society he is seldom engaged in those solitary walks, or walks with a single companion, which built the minds of the previous generations. He lives in a crowd; caucus has replaced friendship."
- C.S. Lewis from the essay "Membership" in "The Weight of Glory"
The company I work for provides us with transportation, although it's a 30 minutes ride, I prefer to walk about 30 minutes and then I would pay a bus to work or home. Why do I do this? Because I get a lot less stressed out when I get to my destination. And because I get to see alot of beautiful girls either at their jobs or walking :)
I'm terrible at walking w/o a destination in mind. A while ago I made this crappy little web tool to give me a random destination to meander to: http://roust.sknkwrks.net/
How can you be bad at walking without a destination in mind? You just put one foot in front of another and every time you have to choose a new direction, pick whichever way looks more interesting (by whatever measure you classify interesting at that moment).
Part of it is motivation. Why bother leaving, if I don't have a particular destination in mind? There are other things I could be doing that seem more important.
The other part is that I fall into patterns really easily. If I don't have a set destination in mind when I leave my apartment, I often just end up at the subway stop I take to get to work.
Pick a destination, but vary the route. Don't take the optimal route. It's easy on grid streets; just move laterally a block or two on the way. And give yourself permission to explore, by making sure you don't have anything planned: just stop and poke your nose into anything that sparks your interest.
I'm not going to claim that it improves my creativity or makes me a better person, but for the last few years I've generally taken at least a half hour out of the middle of my workday to walk (I'm lucky enough to work next to a park). It massively improves my mood, and I'd fight hard against giving it up.
There was a tube (underground metro) strike in London the past few days, so I walked to work, leaving my apartment at about 6.30am and arriving in the office at 8am, mostly along the river. It was excellent and I'm considering doing it 1-2 days a week even when I don't need to.
I agree it's a great feeling. I started walking 45 minutes a day, 6x a week, a few months ago. My wife convinced me to try it after pointing out that the health benefits were not insignificant (I was mainly biking until then, but losing my enthusiasm because of my rides getting longer and longer and requiring more prep). The gains have been pretty great--in just three months I'm down at my waist by two belt notches and when I get back to work I'm usually in a better mood.
Next I just need to conquer this stress eating thing. The exercise has really put my compensatory eating habits into stark relief.
I walk 45 minutes to and from work each day along a beautiful tree lined street. It is a great way to start the day and then to transition back into home life, sort of a metaphorical journey to leave my work problems at work.
My walk is around 20 minutes and the time spent organizing my thoughts for the workday on the way in or winding my brain down from work mode on the way is a great benefit.
Every so often my wife will pick me up directly from work and the conversation is usually terrible because my brain is still thinking of the problems I was solving a couple minutes beforehand.
I once read a pretty impressive string of biographies where all of the guys did their serious thinking on long walks - Steve Jobs, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincol, I might be forgetting others.
imho, the best companion for a coder in home office is a dog.
Try to explain your problem to your dog, if you are stuck. And if this does not help, walk the dog to free your mind, and relax. Most often the solution is obvious once I'm back home.
Completely agree - Plus when he wants to go out and play it forces you to take breaks and refresh yourself. Really helps keep you going and make it more enjoyable by the end of the day.
True. A dog is a good reminder that its time for a break. A dog forces you to take a walk 3 to 5 times a day, regardless if its sunny, raining or storm. This certainly has also a health benefit.
Dogs are allowed in our office at work. When I started taking our dog to the office, I wondered about a productivity drop, what with poop breaks (for the dog) and the dog wanting the occasional bit of attention. It's hard to empirically measure, but I'm pretty sure I'm more productive. Even just turning to pet the dog, and take a break from staring at the screen for a few minutes is helpful. Hourly walk breaks, instead of sitting staring at the screen until lunch, clears my head and gives me a new perspective on a problem sometimes.
Of course you don't need a dog. Just get your ass out of the seat once in a while. It's just easier to remember when something is pawing at you. :-)
Now if purposeless lifestyle journalism would race it to the grave...
The whole question of purpose is a bit confused. I bet that a lot of people in my neighborhood do most of their walking leash in hand. Does the dog make it purposeful? If I stop by the drugstore or the post office on my usual noon walk, does that change it from purposeless to purposeful?
As some one who currently works from home, a "purposeless" walk is how I start and end my work day – I think of it as my "commute". Walking clears my head, gets me outside for a bit, and helps me separate my home life from my work life.
For me, those walks might not be a necessity, but they are definitely not without purpose.
I do this exact same thing. I also take walks around the park by my house during conference calls that I don't have to speak on. I have found that it actually makes me more alert and thoughtful.
Yes, the paradox is that daydreaming and apparent purposelessness are, in the long run, about the most important things that get done. Or at least the beginning of the most important things: things which eventually become more active and purposeful.
e.g. Peter Higgs was walking in Scotland when he thought of first thought of his boson.
I do feel that the article is somewhat strident (ho ho). The only rule about wandering (and wondering) is that there are no rules or proscriptions. In contravention of the third bullet point I often listen to audio on walks, turning it on and off at whim.
"Yes, the paradox is that daydreaming and apparent purposelessness are, in the long run, about the most important things that get done. Or at least the beginning of the most important things: things which eventually become more active and purposeful."
Assuming you actually do something with those thoughts/ideas/daydreams. I have a habit of thinking of wonderful ideas, and never quite getting around to them. At some point, too many ideas are quite debilitating.
But perhaps that's just me. Every since I started on some fun personal projects, I find my alone/me time is spent not thinking up new ideas, but thinking of ideas on how to improve/do the parts of the project I'm currently working on.
You're right. It's a bit like evolution. The overwhelming majority of mutations led nowhere but we absolutely relied on the tiny few that got us to where we are today. That said, people who can't truly relax and daydream (most people I think) are never going to get started. And children who are made to sit still in school can't think so well.
I wish I had the patience for this in the morning - I am the sort of person that rushes from A to B stressing over how much there is still to do and how little of it I've managed to complete.
I'm definitely susceptible to that too. I wish I could say I manage to do this every day but somedays I wake up and go straight to the computer, start reading emails, and get sucked into work from there. Or start reading Hacker News.
Agreed, not least of which because very few people go out for a walk when it's snowing or raining, which increases my enjoyment greatly. I love having a whole snowy street completely to myself.
Snow deadens sound quite a bit, and even rain adds white noise. Either is pleasant when you want to just walk and (not) think.
But as you say it's a purposeful walk to commute to/from work no? I wonder what % of people truly do the purposeless, I'm going outside for a walk, kind of walk...
I know I never do that. I walk to get somewhere, I walk to show friends the city, I walk while meeting with someone, but never walk just to walk.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
187 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadhttp://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/297327865/in-the-1870s-and-80s...
> We may think of baseball as America's national pastime, but in the 1870s and 1880s there was another sports craze sweeping the nation: competitive walking. "Watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport," Matthew Algeo says in his new book, Pedestrianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrianism
> During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pedestrianism, like running or horse racing (equestrianism) was a popular spectator sport in the British Isles. Pedestrianism became a fixture at fairs – much like horse racing – developing from wagers on footraces, rambling, and 17th century footman wagering.[1] Sources from the late 17th and early 18th century in England write of aristocrats pitting their carriage footmen, constrained to walk by the speed of their masters' carriages, against one another.[2] By the end of the 18th century, and especially with the growth of the popular press, feats of foot travel over great distances (similar to a modern Ultramarathon) gained attention, and were labeled "pedestrianism".
> Champagne was considered a stimulant. And a lot of trainers — these guys had trainers — advised their pedestrians to drink a lot of champagne during the race. They thought that this would give them some kind of advantage. The problem was a lot of these guys would drink it by the bottle. That definitely was not a stimulant to say the least.
(Via http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149532)
very amusing article.
I'll drink most anything but I won't drink Grappa...
There's even an American organization for it, though I'd hadn't heard of it before today: http://www2.ava.org/
Wastes more water though..
This was driven home forceful to me in elementary school, quite a lot of years ago but it stuck with me. A friend of mine, who is now a very successful medical doctor and still quite close to me to this day, would walk around the yard with me at any recess. All recess, every day. Sometimes we would say nothing, sometimes we would have long discussions. My principal pulled us in after a number of months and said "your aimless walking is unproductive and will lead to problems, play a sport or find a game and stop it." We didn't listen, and so far we have been very productive in life, and haven't caused too many problems at all.
It doesn't sound normal at all.
That being said, I can say many of the people in my peer group did conform to these standards and did become very successful. I can point at handfuls of my friends and acquaintances who went to school at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and many other highly rated schools on full ride scholarships. A number of them have successful careers in medicine, law, politics and even professional sports. So, I guess the proof is in the pudding, it does work.
No one ever spoke up at a PTA meeting because parents wanted their kids to succeed, and the thought process goes that if they followed the program, they would succeed.
Of course, we won't talk about the suicide rate at my high school...
And then, at the end of the walk, I come back to reality and the peacefulness comes to an end, replaced with kids, business, other distractions. For a while though, I am in my own little world wandering around.
I usually try to bring a pen and paper with me to write ideas down, I find that typing the ideas into my phone is not as satisfying somehow.
On a recent visit to SF, I was waiting for a friend to finish with work. He invited me to stay and hang out at his company cafeteria. When I declined, saying I'd rather go wandering, he and his friends looked at me like I was some kind of partially deranged maniac. I had a great time!
When I was in college I'd go into New York City and just wander around. I walked from the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center (the original was still standing). A cool place to walk in (though overwhelming and a bit dangerous if you don't know where not to go).
I hear you on vacation walking. I never understood guided trips when there is so much fun to be had with random adventure. Similar to you I enjoyed both Japan and Australia quite a bit.
I love hiking in the mountains, but when I lived in the country I often wound up replacing aimless walking with aimless driving.
I don't like bikes, for medium distances I prefer to go by public transport/own transport
Unfortunately walking works only on moderate distances round-trip (you can go further if you go or return using something else)
Also...this is something I learned in high school after learning to drive...when I had to walk or be driven to places, I never paid much attention to what order the streets were in...and only after driving myself does their order become important in my mind. Also, the age of Google Maps makes remembering streets even more irrelevant...I think that was also a factor in the detective's skepticism of me being slightly confused about location. What can I say, Manhattan is a city that invites just walking around in a general direction.
I understand her.
As a busy person, nothing is more boring and time consuming than exercising "on purpose". I ride my bike everywhere, always use the stairs, do my own cleaning, laundry, groceries, and cooking, and constantly jump to conclusions. That oughta be enough.
Some of us are married.
Treating "Great White Men" of the past as exemplars of how life used to be is ridiculous. Advising people to get out and walk for the sake of walking is great, but I don't think we need to pretend that we've lost a great source of creative thinking that used to be more universal.
If you're comparing the average survey respondent to your average independently wealthy 19th century author, there's a few pretty obvious reasons why people with normal jobs don't aimlessly walk all the time - such as a job and the appeal of aimlessly driving, which I'm sure scratches nearly the same itch.
He's either on a leash (by law) pulling relentlessly, or he's free, needing vigilant watch. It's perfectly doable having him walk next to you, but he's still stressing out at everything and it seeps into your bones.
Might be many would benefit from taking walks like you do, I run instead, no patience for walking, but I probably should if only for the benefit of learning to be more patient.
The idea of doing something so unproductive and slow is really hard to get over, though.
One of the suggestions in the article is the walk mindfully. Unless you're familiar with usages of that term, it's not immediately clear what that means:
It's effectively suggesting meditation through walking. You shouldn't be able to take two steps without finding something marginally interesting to consider. That doesn't mean to write it down for later study, but just let it fill your mind for a moment, and then move on to the next interesting thing.
Walking is about getting to know the world by moving through it. That's a lot harder to do at the speed of a jog.
Most places in the world are pretty safe actually, and dangers live mostly inside our heads.
Until now, I never had any negative experiences, anywhere in the world because of walking. I'm male, though, I guess that's quite significant in many places.
I get some good thinking in while commuting on my bike. Probably a similar effect.
"Even on those rear occasions when a modern undergraduate is not attending some such society he is seldom engaged in those solitary walks, or walks with a single companion, which built the minds of the previous generations. He lives in a crowd; caucus has replaced friendship."
- C.S. Lewis from the essay "Membership" in "The Weight of Glory"
Not meant to be hostile, genuinely curious.
The other part is that I fall into patterns really easily. If I don't have a set destination in mind when I leave my apartment, I often just end up at the subway stop I take to get to work.
Pick a destination, but vary the route. Don't take the optimal route. It's easy on grid streets; just move laterally a block or two on the way. And give yourself permission to explore, by making sure you don't have anything planned: just stop and poke your nose into anything that sparks your interest.
For instance to find a nice cafe you've never been to before, or a nice bookshop.
There was a tube (underground metro) strike in London the past few days, so I walked to work, leaving my apartment at about 6.30am and arriving in the office at 8am, mostly along the river. It was excellent and I'm considering doing it 1-2 days a week even when I don't need to.
Next I just need to conquer this stress eating thing. The exercise has really put my compensatory eating habits into stark relief.
Every so often my wife will pick me up directly from work and the conversation is usually terrible because my brain is still thinking of the problems I was solving a couple minutes beforehand.
Wrong thread.
Try to explain your problem to your dog, if you are stuck. And if this does not help, walk the dog to free your mind, and relax. Most often the solution is obvious once I'm back home.
Of course you don't need a dog. Just get your ass out of the seat once in a while. It's just easier to remember when something is pawing at you. :-)
http://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/
The whole question of purpose is a bit confused. I bet that a lot of people in my neighborhood do most of their walking leash in hand. Does the dog make it purposeful? If I stop by the drugstore or the post office on my usual noon walk, does that change it from purposeless to purposeful?
For me, those walks might not be a necessity, but they are definitely not without purpose.
e.g. Peter Higgs was walking in Scotland when he thought of first thought of his boson.
I do feel that the article is somewhat strident (ho ho). The only rule about wandering (and wondering) is that there are no rules or proscriptions. In contravention of the third bullet point I often listen to audio on walks, turning it on and off at whim.
Assuming you actually do something with those thoughts/ideas/daydreams. I have a habit of thinking of wonderful ideas, and never quite getting around to them. At some point, too many ideas are quite debilitating.
But perhaps that's just me. Every since I started on some fun personal projects, I find my alone/me time is spent not thinking up new ideas, but thinking of ideas on how to improve/do the parts of the project I'm currently working on.
I'm an all seasons kind of guy. Sometimes you just gotta put more clothes on. And gloves and a hat. Also boots. Winter walks can be the best walks.
Snow deadens sound quite a bit, and even rain adds white noise. Either is pleasant when you want to just walk and (not) think.
I know I never do that. I walk to get somewhere, I walk to show friends the city, I walk while meeting with someone, but never walk just to walk.
I also grew up doing it, so that might have something to do with it.
Huh? I'd say the exact opposite. Nothing more boring than walking around suburbia.
I think he meant it more generally than just walking around, but a nice reminder nonetheless.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
(from 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.)