The slow death of purposeless walking

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27186709

by basisword • 12 years ago

353 183 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

jrochkind1• 12 years ago

An odd bit of the history of walking I recently learned about:

http://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".

pwenzel• 12 years ago

Amusing note from the NPR story:

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.

cafard2• 12 years ago

Better on the whole than the strychnine they used to give distance runners, I suppose.

modarts• 12 years ago

And thus Bay to Breakers was born

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

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.

lnanek2• 12 years ago

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.

brc• 12 years ago

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.

mattjaynes3• 12 years ago

This reminds me a lot of 'Volksmarching' in Germany ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksmarching ). It's still a popular past-time there from what I can tell.

There's even an American organization for it, though I'd hadn't heard of it before today: http://www2.ava.org/

Strilanc• 12 years ago

On the other hand, shower thinking is alive and well. Probably far more common than it was 100 years ago, too.

Wastes more water though..

collyw• 12 years ago

Not as much as baths, which were more common in my childhood.

jobigoud• 12 years ago

I do both. The main difference is that I look foolish when I do it while walking because I think aloud.

trcollinson2• 12 years ago

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.

arjie• 12 years ago

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.

It doesn't sound normal at all.

Jtsummers• 12 years ago

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.

tonyedgecombe• 12 years ago

It sounds rather mild compared to what went on in my school.

trcollinson2• 12 years ago

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...

gregpilling• 12 years ago

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.

mathattack2• 12 years ago

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.

tspike• 12 years ago

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!

e40• 12 years ago

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).

bitwize• 12 years ago

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).

namenotrequired• 12 years ago

I do this daily, whether I'm at work (Amsterdam) or at home (a smaller town in the neighborhood).

bronbron• 12 years ago

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.

macNchz• 12 years ago

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.

brazzy• 12 years ago

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.

97-109-107• 12 years ago

And here an article on the slow death of the purposeless browsing http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-o...

raverbashing• 12 years ago

Yeah, I do that a lot

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)

danso• 12 years ago

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.

edw519• 12 years ago

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.

oh_sigh• 12 years ago

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.

JoshTriplett• 12 years ago

Perhaps partly because doing so or not doing so will make national news. That's quite a motivating factor.

smorrow• 12 years ago

And shagging.

lportion• 12 years ago

I suspect not everyone is so lucky.

Some of us are married.

CognitiveLens• 12 years ago

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.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

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.

phea• 12 years ago

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.

mister_m• 12 years ago

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.

dirtyaura• 12 years ago

May I ask where do you live?

Most places in the world are pretty safe actually, and dangers live mostly inside our heads.

batmansbelt• 12 years ago

Joyce wrote a fair bit about purposeless walks. Probably about half of A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man occurs during pointless walks.

I get some good thinking in while commuting on my bike. Probably a similar effect.

catwork• 12 years ago

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"

EzGraphs• 12 years ago

Should be "rare occasions" I think. Great quote.

charlesthomas3• 12 years ago

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/

Tyrannosaurs3• 12 years ago

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).

Not meant to be hostile, genuinely curious.

charlesthomas3• 12 years ago

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.

dllthomas• 12 years ago

I've definitely been known to go out and walk 5 miles across town for the sake of it.

throwaway13qf85• 12 years ago

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.

themodelplumber• 12 years ago

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.

thenipper• 12 years ago

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.

stevesearer• 12 years ago

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.

twistedpair• 12 years ago

Comm Ave to the Public Garden and through the Common each day to work. Pity so many people will spend their free hours in cars and underground.

saturdaysaint• 12 years ago

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.

jpollock2• 12 years ago

This is probably a dumb question, but why didn't he use mmap for writes?

shrikant• 12 years ago

Unless this is some obscure joke I don't get, the thread you want is this-a-way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7678178

mjp94• 12 years ago

He probably didn't do enough walking before writing the post.

Wrong thread.

jpollock2• 12 years ago

Yep, nuts. :)

kephra2• 12 years ago

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.

quaffapint• 12 years ago

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.

kephra2• 12 years ago

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.

mikestew• 12 years ago

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. :-)

anmilo• 12 years ago

ah, Dog Debugging - the lesser known cousin of "rubber duck debugging"

http://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/

cafard2• 12 years ago

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?

chippy• 12 years ago

It's astonishing how many people I see walking with headphones and earplugs in.

themoonbus4• 12 years ago

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.

batoure• 12 years ago

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.

prestadige3• 12 years ago

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.

zo1• 12 years ago

"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.

waltherg• 12 years ago

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.

themoonbus4• 12 years ago

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.

jader201• 12 years ago

I take it you live in a climate not subject to the extremes of seasons?

themoonbus4• 12 years ago

Moved to Southern California 4 months ago, but grew up and lived in New England before that.

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.

jmzbond• 12 years ago

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.

themoonbus4• 12 years ago

I work from home – my commute starts and ends in the same place, so it is walking for the sake of walking.

I also grew up doing it, so that might have something to do with it.

rza• 12 years ago

Very few people, particularly in cities, are obliged to do much of it at all.

Huh? I'd say the exact opposite. Nothing more boring than walking around suburbia.

saraid2165• 12 years ago

That's because suburbia is boring. Come to the city.

based2• 12 years ago

http://www.ivv-web.org/home.en.php Internationaler Volkssportverband Enrich your life through Volkssport.

ronancremin• 12 years ago

Worth remembering the Yogi Berra quote: "Not all who wander are lost."

I think he meant it more generally than just walking around, but a nice reminder nonetheless.

saalweachter• 12 years ago

... Isn't that a line from a Tolkien poem?

prestadige3• 12 years ago

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.

(from 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.)

disdev• 12 years ago

It's a bit difficult where I am (semi-rural)... busy roads, no sidewalks, dogs without leashes (pitbull attacks are too frequent).

But, I do the same with running. I drive to nearby trails most every day. And for the family, we do short backpacking trips with no real goal. Just hike a few miles out to a campsite, hang out, read, cook, play around, and then head home the next evening. My kids are young (7 and 12), and I think it does them a lot of good to be able to cover some distance and pack things in and out on their own.

timjahn• 12 years ago

"Just hike a few miles out to a campsite, hang out, read, cook, play around, and then head home the next evening. My kids are young (7 and 12), and I think it does them a lot of good to be able to cover some distance and pack things in and out on their own."

That's great. There's nothing like getting out in the outdoors, camping, and just living a little bit. No real "purpose" other than to experience the nature around you. Kudos to you.

abentspoon• 12 years ago

This has come up a few times, but I liked ribbonfarm's take on the same topic.

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/09/how-to-take-a-walk/

hn discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1590290

ef47d35620c1• 12 years ago

I'm learning to do this again. At first, I had to make myself, but now I really enjoy it. I typically walk during lunch and in the evenings, just for the sake of walking and thinking. I find that it reduces stress and helps me to think more clearly.

personlurking• 12 years ago

In Brazil, around the 1920s and for the next few decades, there was a popular activity called "footing" (an obvious anglicism), but it had a purpose. From a Brazilian text I found,

"Footing, coming from the English "to go on foot", happened principally in small cities. Girls would put on their best dress and go out to walk with a clear goal: to be observed by the guys, equally well-dressed."

Coincidentally, I lived in a very small town in Brazil several years ago and this is what they did on Friday and Saturday nights. There was a single, small town square where it happened. On one occasion where I asked a young woman out (in her 20s), this is where we went. All was fine until I looked 10 steps behind us to notice several older people seemingly following us. When I brought it to her attention, she nonchalantly said, "oh, that's my father, mother, uncle and grandmother."

gaisturiz• 12 years ago

A fun exercise:

Walk down a street you drive on a regular basis; the things you'll notice will make it seem like you're in a different place altogether.

brightsize2• 12 years ago

Another fun exercise if you already have a well-worn walking route: walk it in the opposite direction. It's striking how doing so makes it seem like you're traversing an entirely different place, even though obviously you're not.

sztanko2• 12 years ago

Just in case if you would like to plan your walks better/discover new places, let me introduce you http://walks.io, my weekend project that does this for you by solving an NP hard graph problem of finding an optimal circular route.

DougWebb• 12 years ago

Your site needs to state the region that it can handle. There's no feedback or error messages when I try to type addresses near me into the search box, and it doesn't say what "Nearest Station" means.

sztanko2• 12 years ago

Apologies, I totally forgot to mention it works for England only.

mrev19• 12 years ago

Periodic aimless walking is a huge productivity boost for any dev. It allows you to take stock, prioritize, and adjust your strategies, not mention solve problems. If you're not doing it, try it, $5 says it saves you tons of time.

debt3• 12 years ago

Smoke a little weed before you go on a purposeless walk. Make sure you have at least a distance, like a mile, that you want to walk. Also, be sure you're in a dense urban environment.

I guarantee it will be one of the most inspirational activities you can do for yourself. I probably do this once a week in SF, and it really dislodges my thoughts/stresses from the previous week.

epi8• 12 years ago

Also, be sure you're in a dense urban environment.

Why?

Quetzalcatalyst• 12 years ago

Yeah for me my ideal relaxed and creative state is in the exact opposite of a dense urban environment. Not that it doesn't have its place, it just seems to impose a sense of purpose on you no matter what you're doing.

debt3• 12 years ago

Basically, anywhere with people; they're the source of the inspiration. Riding BART or any public transit typically would have the same effect. Take a purposeless bus ride while high for the people.

milesokeefe• 12 years ago

Smoke a little weed before you go on a purposeless walk.

YMMV, for me that would be a paranoid, intellectually numb walk.

debt3• 12 years ago

Ha, you just gotta smoke the right stuff. Sometimes that paranoia is what makes it interesting; reveals the contours of your mind. You get a sense of your personality you never had before.

dismal2• 12 years ago

I find SF to be one of the worst cities to walk around. Lot's of it is just boring, lot's of it is just unsafe or very dirty. Top cities for me would be Paris and Brussels.

coldcode• 12 years ago

I first read "The slow death of purposeless coding".

joshrotenberg• 12 years ago

Sounds like you might need to go for a walk.

harmonicon• 12 years ago

I really enjoys the mindless strolling the article talks about. Assuming most people work 9-5, you can only take such walks in the morning or at night. Unfortunately, taking a solitary walk in my (US) city at those times is simply not safe and goes against a multitude of general safety tips.

The biggest problem is the dearth of other strollers. In addition to the lack of a pedestrian culture, US does not much of a concept of "communal life". When I travelled abroad (Asia and Africa, not sure about Europe), I noticed that there are much more people of all ages just lingering around the street/public spaces during the day and at night. They are just hanging out. In contrast American social scene centers around private spaces and networks. Lingering in public space seems out of place and such "idleness" is generally associated with unemployment and other undesirable qualities.

dodders• 12 years ago

Where do you live in the US that is unsafe for walking?

kencausey• 12 years ago

I don't know harmonicon's situation but in my case the problem is a small town (metropolitan area now) that was built up without consistently installing sidewalks. It's difficult to walk more than a mile without having to compete with traffic. That is changing though, I believe all new development has to include a sidewalk and there is a slowly developing 'greenways' project that is building sidewalks of twice the normal width with some paths that are not next to streets.

scrollaway• 12 years ago

Interesting "discussion" on reddit about the article (language warning): http://reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/24g5xn

kilroy123• 12 years ago

Exactly why I walk to and from work. About 25 minutes each way, instead of taking the bus, or light rail. People always ask me, why do you walk? Because it's damn relaxing, especially when I look over and see traffic.

canvia• 12 years ago

A lot of the commenters seem to have missed this recent submission: Stanford study finds walking improves creativity (stanford.edu) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7669818

saraid2165• 12 years ago

There's a TED talk (aaaaand legitimacy already questionable) that argues that our brains are built for movement. I find this fairly plausible; it feels like a lot of movement activities correlate strongly with better brain functioning.

saraid2165• 12 years ago

Has anyone read Frederic Gros' "A Philosophy of Walking" (http://www.amazon.com/A-Philosophy-Walking-Frederic-Gros/dp/...)? I thought about picking it up yesterday, but I didn't do so and it'd be nice to hear some HN reviews.

SonicSoul• 12 years ago

Very few people, particularly in cities, are obliged to do much of it at all. Cars, bicycles, buses, trams, and trains all beckon.

I think they got it backwards. It's suburbia that let's you use your car door to door.

I haven't done the study, but based on my observations walking is one of the favorite activities of inhabitants of my city. In fact people come from far away just to spend the day walking around. Some is leisure, but one can't help but to introspect when left on pavement for too long.

another person known for his walking was Arthur Schopenhauer. He walked for 2 hours every day regardless of weather conditions[0]. I read about this long time ago and it left a lasting impression.

but walking is not the only activity that is good for introspection. For me driving worked just as well. I miss driving.

[0]http://www.apieceofmonologue.com/2009/06/day-in-life-of-arth...

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

Totally agree. When I lived in a large city I walked a lot more. Not for the reasons you say though. In my suburban home everything I need is at most a 5-10 minute walk away. Because a city is a much larger place it took 10-15 minutes to get from my apartment to most places (coffee, convenience store, public transport etc.).

encoderer• 12 years ago

Absolutely correct.

The amount of walking I do now after moving to the bay area has changed my life. Yesterday was particularly busy, I walked 5.8 miles, about 22k steps and 900 calories according to Moves. Most days, though, just walking from trans to office, walking to lunch, then trans to home is about 1.5 miles per day. It blows my mind that before moving here, living in the suburbs, there were literally days where the most walking I did was across the parking lot to my car.

Whenever possible I ditch the office in favor of walking during my weekly 1-on-1 meetings with my team. Getting out of the office for 45 minutes is good for everybody involved.

robobro• 12 years ago

In the city where I live (Portland), most people take buses or the light rail when they can't bike due to the rain. In the summer, there's a lot of walking. I've noticed less of it in the suburbs, but there's quite a lot of it in rural Oregon. Simple, cheap fun.

The Buddhists, whom Schopenhauer appreciated and modeled quite a bit of his metaphysical and psychological thinking on, also enjoyed walking a fair bit. The "four positions" of the body for meditative posture, which the early Buddhists reference, are 'lying down', 'sitting', 'standing', and 'walking'. They, the Zen monks, and others involved in philosophical and spiritual traditions, tend to share appreciation for walking forms of meditation, or a love of "pointless" walking, which is meant to foster a more concentrated state of awareness. There's quite a lot of walking involved in the homeless monk's life, as well, as many monks undertake a training rule to abstain from the use of vehicles, undertake a rule to collect food on an alms walk, and may just simply enjoy traveling. Such is the life of a wanderer. Walking on and on can help people drop attachments.

We often see depressed, anxious, obsessive, and manic sorts walking... or more, pacing... which I think resembles the walking of monastics, or shamans, wizards, and priests in "ritual walking". A lot of very creative and intellectual types can be seen to pace mindlessly... can be walking be a source of stress relief? It's a common form of training for the military, and also a common form of punishment for prisons, as marching (perhaps a bit faster pace than walking). But endless walking, marching, and pacing can't be all that good for the mind, as post office workers can "go postal" from too much of it.

Walking mindfully, which can promote philosophical or creative thinking, provide psychological therapy (as Wittgenstein said, philosophy is therapy), or lead to spiritual enlightenment and purity, is as easy as placing all your focus on the soles of your feet... down, down, down, down, or place, lift, place, lift, or left, right, left, right, left, right.

JacksonGariety2• 12 years ago

Yay! Portland!

ajslater• 12 years ago

Portland isn't really dense urban, though, its has some nice neighborhoods, but you're best off bicycling between them through long stretches of residential houses with big yards.

Florin_Andrei• 12 years ago

To me, the connection between "purposeless walking" and creativity is beyond obvious. Every idea I had that was broad, far reaching, a game changer in many ways, I've had it while walking with no apparent aim. Not in the shower, not while sitting in an armchair, and definitely not in front of a computer.

There's something about this activity that expands the mind and jumpstarts the creative process. It doesn't help with narrowly analytic stuff - that's best left for when you're hunched down in front of the LCD.

paul_f• 12 years ago

I think this is an overly broad generalization. People in suburbia walk all the time. For exercise. For fun. Sometimes just to walk the dog. They may not be walking with a purpose, but isn't that the point of the article?

simonvallee• 12 years ago

Completely agree that driving can work just as well for generating insights. Whether I'm walking or driving, I've found the key for me is to force my mind to be active. An easy way to do that is having a clear intention in mind when I set out - like a problem I want to solve or a situation I want to analyze.

minor_nitwit• 12 years ago

The article also says that just 17% of walks are made for the pleasure of walking. That sounds like a good number to me, should I expect a third of the people I see to be going nowhere?

Houshalter• 12 years ago

I find myself pacing back and forth whenever I get deep in thought about something. I love walking outside just to think, and it's where I get my best ideas. Though I wouldn't be comfortable doing it in a city around other people.

brlewis• 12 years ago

I'm disappointed that there's no discussion about whether Fitbit aids or hinders purposeless walking. Under what circumstances is it primarily a motivator? Under what circumstances is it primarily a distraction?

nathanvanfleet• 12 years ago

I bet this is comparing regular middle class busy bees to rich people with a lot of land to wander about on. But sure, why not.

nilkn• 12 years ago

I've always been a walker, and I always thought I was alone in doing this. I probably started when I was in middle school. I'd walk around the neighborhood or more often my parents' sizable yard, never for exercise, even if I got that coincidentally, but only for thinking.

Even in college, whenever I wanted to get away from other people, I'd walk around campus, often at night. I wouldn't be going anywhere in particular at all.

I haven't really walked in months now because I can't. I live in a major city where one must make a planned effort in order to get to a park, and even then the park is liable to be crowded, which has a deleterious effect on the great solitude of walking in nature. Walking in a city is just thoroughly unlike walking in nature.

GigabyteCoin• 12 years ago

As someone who regularly enjoys walking the local conservation areas everywhere he goes, I am always amazed at how empty they always are.

To be 3 miles away from a few million people and only see a handful of others out enjoying the same fresh air and excercise that I am is quite distressing.

sard420• 12 years ago

Most people would have to walk through smog and traffic, and literally enjoy a cold concrete paradise. This doesn't sound enjoyable for meandering. I long for a rural life.

elwell• 12 years ago

Here's a fantastic short story by Bruno Schulz that, to me, captures the joy of walking, albeit mostly indirectly: http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/o/thelibraryofbabel/schulz/c...

dclusin• 12 years ago

I live about a 5 minute walk from Castro St. in Mountain View. I always walk down there whenever I go to eat food because I enjoy walking. My roommate cannot comprehend why I do this instead of driving. I think it has to do with the fact that our society has become so focused on instant gratification rather than gradual gratification.

tannerc• 12 years ago

Surprised to see nobody yet mention here Edward de Bono's concept of creative pause.

It's through activities such as purposeless walking — or showering, or doing the dishes — that we allow our consciousness to subside into a routine task while subconscious feedback is allowed to subtly rise. In theory this allows for more of a connection to the deeper going-ons in the brain.

More thoughts on the matter from designer Cameron Moll, dated six years ago: http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/2008/11/showering_and_th...

Myrmornis• 12 years ago

I read a biography of Paul Dirac recently and it seemed like he did a lot of his thinking about physics while walking. I checked and am impressed to see that the BBC has actually already included this obscure fact in their article!

trismegistos• 12 years ago

Good article.

This bugged me, though:

The way people in the West have started to look down on walking is detectable in the language. "When people say something is pedestrian they mean flat, limited in scope," says Solnit.

...Seeing as how "pedestrian" comes from Latin pedester, which had the same two meanings ("on foot" or "dull and ordinary"). The Romans contrasted it with the more exciting equester ("on horseback").

mattjaynes3• 12 years ago

Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places.

Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again.

Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks. Am I frightening the neighborhood by going on a walk after dark? It sure feels like it.

In suburbia, I'll even get suspicious looks walking during the day - as if I'm scoping out houses to rob or something. And I'm a pretty boring safe looking type of guy (so I'm told, haha).

The exception to this I've found is if I'm walking a dog or walking with another person (preferably female) to legitimize me as a walker.

The longer I'm in these parts of suburbia, the more I realize that these attitudes are somewhat justified. Sadly, I don't think I've ever seen a man walking around the neighborhoods by himself unless he was a vagrant.

Apparently the vast majority of men in these neighborhoods just don't ever go on walks unaccompanied. Otherwise it would turn into a 'normal' activity and the suspiciousness of it would subside.

I realize there are probably great neighborhoods in the US for walking, but from my limited experience (living in ~10 states), they seem pretty rare outside of urban centers.

I spent a lot of time in Germany (US military communities) growing up and it was a totally different experience. Much of Europe that I've seen is likewise a vastly better experience for walking.

In 6 days I'm moving to Berlin. Why? Well, I'm bootstrapping a small systems-training business and want to live somewhere low cost and without a car. While cheap walkable places surely must exist in the US, they're rare and I haven't been able to find many that are also safe and not run-down. If I'm missing some, please let me know!

After being in US suburbia for the last few months, I'm really looking forward to being a first-class citizen as a walker again.

sentenza• 12 years ago

Good luck with your move to Berlin! It might interest you that there are many car-sharing schemes operational in Berlin, so that you can go completely car-less, even if you have to cover a large distance or transport something every now and then.

mattjaynes3• 12 years ago

Thanks! That's great to know :) I've been told Berlin is pretty spread-out, so it'll be good to have access to a vehicle for longer distances.

jrockway2• 12 years ago

This is exactly how I feel when I visit Mountain View for work. Why are the parking lots in front of the store and not in the back? Why do I have to walk through a sea of parked cars to get to my building? It's all very strange to me.

I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark.

My conclusion: not the place for me.

auvrw• 12 years ago

I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark.

i lived near mountain view and did not notice this when visiting on my bicycle or the caltrain. sure, it's not the city proper, but mountain view seems rather quaint and really quite pedestrian friendly, at least in the area by the train station.

hibbelig• 12 years ago

You own a day-only car?

ChrisNorstrom• 12 years ago

This is why everyone's trying to cram into San Francisco. It's extremely walkable. At some point Americans decided to abandon the walkable city that was designed by thousand year old civilizations and spread out like crazy. Thus requiring cars. Now people are realizing why driving everywhere isn't such a good idea.

Trust is also increasingly disappearing in America and the car, gated communities, and spread out maze-like suburbs are what people put in front to make themselves feel safe.

ahi• 12 years ago

There are still some small cities in the midwest that are both cheap and walkable. Look for college towns for cities that arent completely rundown nd rusted away.

ibrow• 12 years ago

I live in Berlin and have just walked to work - I love it (even on a rainy day like today) - time to think.

Whilst Berlin is spread out I have found that you normally stick to your own "kiez" (neighbourhood). If you are lucky you'll be able to live and work in roughly the same area, and therefore walking (or cycling) is a great option.

As a previous commenter said, there are a number of shared car options available. I don't use these as I have no need, but they seem very good.

Also, the public transport within the city is very good.

There is, however, one danger of walking. It is very easy to find yourself stopping for a coffee or a beer on a sunny day!

coldpie• 12 years ago

Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks.

I've encountered this, too. My solution is to use a flashlight. I don't even aim it where I'm looking as I want to keep my night vision, I just aim it at my feet as I walk. This announces my presence to anyone nearby, so I don't suddenly surprise them or make them think I'm trying to hide.

mapt• 12 years ago

I had a stretch where I was very fond of walking around my neighborhood at night - the quiet, the lack of cars, the wildlife.

A flashlight is going to destroy what little night vision the streetlamps have left you with, and make you blind to the world.

Try a cheap, bright orange/yellow reflective vest - it serves the same purpose.

bunderbunder• 12 years ago

At some point I finally realized that most cities in the US are designed for cars, not humans.

I still haven't figured out why humans who live in the USA aren't bothered by this. They really seem to enjoy living in the thrall of their 4-wheeled overlords. They'll even arrange their lives to ensure that the car gets upwards of an hour of exercise per day, at great great financial cost to themselves. Oftentimes to the detriment of their own health, too, since they usually forego their own exercise for the sake of the car's. It's absolutely bizarre.

rwhitman• 12 years ago

Great book on the cars-first disaster of urban planning that I read years ago if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/The-Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Landsca...

akdetrick• 12 years ago

I've also had the experience of getting "suspicious looks" while walking in suburbia.

I was once stopped and questioned by a police cruiser because I was walking on a well lit street at night in my Ohio hometown. The officer was reluctant to accept that anyone would walk for the sake of walking - and yes, I've read "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury [1]. Truth can be as strange as fiction.

After living in NYC for 10 years, walking has become such a natural part of life that I completely forgot how unusual it was in suburban Ohio.

I can't help but think that the lack of walking goes beyond negative health effects; I feel like it erodes civil society to a certain degree. When you drive door to door, you rarely interact with strangers. Given my experience, I don't think "paranoia" is too harsh of a word to describe what car-focused settlement patterns can do to people.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pedestrian

EDIT: not sure if "The Pedestrian" is in the public domain, so linking to wikipedia instead of directly to a PDF

peterjmag• 12 years ago

Good luck with the move! I moved to Berlin from the US just over a year ago, and I've absolutely loved it here so far. Such a great place to explore on foot too. Especially when I first arrived, one of my favorite things to do was just pick a district and wander for a while. I discovered many of my now-favorite places that way.

It is indeed rather spread out though, so I definitely recommend supplementing your transport possibilities with a bike. =)

cevaris• 12 years ago

Went walking today, left the audiobooks at home...

aaron987• 12 years ago

I am an avid walker. Even when I was a kid, I would go for long walks. My parents never worried about me, because I always came back, sometimes after walking for 4 or 5 hours. I would sit in the woods and watch birds. Sometimes I would find myself sitting in a park. Other times I would walk around in cemeteries (they are actually great places to walk. They have paved roads but no traffic).

There was this homeless guy who sometimes sat next to one of the places I would walk past. I guess he eventually got curious, so one day he asked where I am always going. I said, "I don't know. I'll find out when I get there".

In college, people would spend the morning cramming for a big test. I would just go for a walk. At that point, I either knew the test material or I didn't, and destressing was more important.

To this day, I walk a lot, even in the middle of winter in Fargo. I turn my phone off and leave everything else at home. I don't even take my wallet. If I don't have money, it eliminates the urge to run into a gas station and grab some milk, or take care of other errands.

Walking is my meditation, therapy, and medication. My friends and family know when I haven't walked that morning because I get cranky and/or depressed.

It is such a shame that our culture does not allow walking for various reasons. Some places don't have sidewalks. Some places have too much traffic. Other places are just not safe. It really is sad. I wonder how many of our problems could be solved if more people just took a chill pill and went for a walk once in awhile.

grobot• 12 years ago

Interested to know if any other visitors from here were presented with an SSL cert selection dialog for beta.bbc.co.uk:443 on visiting this article - "Select a certificate" not something I've seen before.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dedkeid58gj7bln/Screenshot%202014-...

Selecting the DigiCert option delivered a Keychain popup asking me for "privateKey", which kept presenting itself on being deny, deny, denied.

(Chrome/OSX)

pimlottc• 12 years ago

They must have their server set to request client certificates. Even with that on, most people will see nothing as browsers will only show that dialog if they have any client certificates registered that the remote site will accept (wrt the signing CA).

intractable• 12 years ago

The article brings to mind this wonderful short story by Ray Bradbury, "Pedestrian" [1]

    "What are you doing out?"
    "Walking," said Leonard Mead.
    "Walking!"
    "Just walking," he said simply, but his face felt cold.
    "Walking, just walking, walking?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Walking where? For what?"
    "Walking for air. Walking to see."

[1] http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1...

hoffcoder• 12 years ago

I was reminded of how much people like Steve Jobs and Mahatma Gandhi were fond of walking. Jobs turned the act of taking a walk into a management tactic, and Gandhi converted the walk into a political weapon with his salt satyagraha.

marajit• 12 years ago

http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Equity-Ideas-Progress-Illich/dp...

hessenwolf• 12 years ago

Please tell me you saw the /r/unitedkingdom thread where somebody suggested replacing walking with wanking?

A great information theory example of what happens when two codes are too close together; walk is one letter away from wank, so a single-letter error changes the meaning completely, but leaves the message still hysterically sensible and readable.

anatoly• 12 years ago

It also works with most comments here!

Whoever thought this up is a genius. Thanks for brightening my day.

VexXtreme• 12 years ago

I live in Tokyo and I absolutely love walking. I sometimes do 10-15 km a day easily. There are so many small interesting back alleys and hidden nooks and crannies here that you could spend half a lifetime exploring this city and still not find everything it has to offer.

I find walking, observing my surroundings and watching people extremely mentally stimulating but also relaxing. It's a great way to get rid of stress and come up with some fresh ideas at the same time. Besides, when you live in a city that's visually appealing, it's hard to get bored even when you're just going from point A to point B.

Tokyo is very pedestrian friendly, maybe even more so than many European cities. Why American cities are hostile to pedestrians is a mystery to me.

hyp0• 12 years ago

17% is hardly dying.

I walk 2 hours almost every day. The trick to avoiding suspicious looks is to do it around 3am (programmer sleep pattern). Then, it's even more suspicious, but no one sees you to form that opinion...

frik• 12 years ago

There is a newer trend, called nordic walking, as an alternative to walking and running: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_walking

throw7• 12 years ago

Ughh. A corner strip mall opened recently in my area and plopped down a parking lot with no sidewalks abutting the side streets (there are planters directly between the lot and street).

There is no safe walkable way to get to/through this area. It's really depressing.

egypturnash2• 12 years ago

Walk through the planters!

I may be crazy.

The slow death of purposeless walking

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