The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
1–10 of 166 posts
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#2I tend to bite my nails, especially when I'm programming or deep in thought. Last year I decided to start walking whenever I reach that point where I am fidgeting and can't sit still. It's totally changed the way I work for the better. I walk between 10-20 miles per day, and can get a lot of work done on those walks. Highly recommended, especially for people living in places with good weather and beautiful scenery.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#3I tend to bite my nails, especially when I'm programming or deep in thought. Last year I decided to start walking whenever I reach that point where I am fidgeting and can't sit still. It's totally changed the way I work for the better. I walk between 10-20 miles per day, and can get a lot of work done on those walks. Highly recommended, especially for people living in places with good weather and beautiful scenery.
Even if not for distance and just a few hours, getting out of the city setting and flooding your perception with nature, trees, natural sounds, quiet, fresh air, etc, can feel like a week of vacation. I think people travel around half the world to get away from their daily routine and see other stuff, but often a walk in the woods can already lift you up quite a bit.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#4I tend to bite my nails, especially when I'm programming or deep in thought. Last year I decided to start walking whenever I reach that point where I am fidgeting and can't sit still. It's totally changed the way I work for the better. I walk between 10-20 miles per day, and can get a lot of work done on those walks. Highly recommended, especially for people living in places with good weather and beautiful scenery.
I have the same problem. If I'm learning something or programming or anything mentally straining I start biting nails.
I have no feeling some problem is out of my reach but still the nail biting happens.
Ever since I've started standing instead of sitting, walking around has decreased my nail biting.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#5Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679506.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#6We now call it meditation.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#7I like walking, biking is not for me, so I walk
And yes, you have a different perspective of the city when you do it. Because it's easier to realize how places connect
Yes, it won't take you as far as a bike, but it's doable
You can walk to work if possible, get on an earlier stop if going by public transport, or, I dunno, just walk around the block if you have to park at your work.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#8So is there any evidence for any of these supposed advantages of aimless walking? Or is this just a "people should do things the way I did them"?
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#9> But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk?
BBC Magazine strikes again.
No, they're not losing it, it's not "slowly dying". Did "people" at large ever have that? Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently. If anything, the existence of "[a] number of recent books [that] have lauded the connection between walking - just for its own sake - and thinking" would suggest that walking is enjoying a renaissance - this time for the masses.
> Many now walk and text at the same time. There's been an increase in injuries to pedestrians in the US attributed to this. One study suggested texting even changed the manner in which people walked.
> It's not just texting. This is the era of the "smartphone map zombie" - people who only take occasional glances away from an electronic routefinder to avoid stepping in anything or being hit by a car.
This is pure Marie Antoinette. 200 years ago, peasants would only glance up from their plows to avoid hitting a rock in the field, or whatever, and surely the savants of the time deplored that as well.
Here's a thought: Most people walking around in the city aren't out on an Dickensque intellectually stimulating aimless wander, they're not out to tread a deep mental path in the words of Thoreau, they are in transit between two places, we could vulgarly call them "work" and "home", and the transit bit is an undesired period of downtime. You'll have to be an intellectual to problematise their choice of filling that period with something else than romantic observation of the very same surroundings they look at twice daily for years.
Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)
#10I personally find it much easier to think deeply whilst doing some tedious repetitive task like ironing or cleaning the house as opposed to while walking. Living in a big city I find walking can be quite stressful and distracting - even in a park.