"You will not sweat."
The author has clearly never lived in Texas during the summer. (A decent-length leisurely walk around Austin at midnight during this time of the year will inevitably result in more than enough sweat.)
How to Take a Walk
21–30 of 191 posts
Re: How to Take a Walk
#22I liked the article; it expressed something that had been lingering on the edges of my subconscious, but that I had never brought to light - like most good articles do. What I don't see is why it had to have an anti-American bias. It doesn't help make your point, and all it does is antagonize your American readers. I am an American, I also take walks.
As a fellow American who takes walks,I disagree with the perceived antagonism. I think part of the point is that there is something deep-seeded in our culture that punishes idleness. That is the social anxiety he describes. I do have a little anxiety when I'm going for a walk, alone, not particularly doing or thinking anything. Will people think I'm some sort of weirdo? The observation that this worry is itself worri…
An acquaintance of mine (Irish like me) visited the US some time in the mid 90s. He took a walk in a suburban area, and was surprised to find himself being followed by a police car before long. When they stopped and asked him what he was doing, it dawned on him that because he wasn't jogging, or walking a dog etc., someone had actually called the police when they saw a stranger walking aimlessly down their road.
Needless to say, all of us back home were appalled by this apparently fearful and paranoid US cultural trait.
Re: How to Take a Walk
#23A re-quote from the comments: > If you need to listen to music while walking, don’t walk; and don’t listen to music. I tend to never listen to music unless I'm taking a walk. I have no anxiety about idleness, but I do have an acute anxiety about others' opinions of my taste in music—it is such that I can only stand to enjoy music when there is no one close enough to me to hear it. Seeing as I live in an apartment wit…
The last sentence of this comment makes no sense. Do his neighbors have such acute auditory ability that they can hear the music from his headphones -- the ones he takes on those walks -- through their walls?
Re: How to Take a Walk
#24I found the article interesting, but I thought it was somewhat overly argumentative. In particular, the claim that immigrants take walks and Americans don't struck me as an implausible over-generalization. I liked his points about the right attire for walking, but the "your walk doesn't count if..." part bothered me.
Re: How to Take a Walk
#25Walk hacks. Definitely a first.
I don't understand this obsessions with calling things "hacks." This isn't a hack. It's an activity. I can't think of any conceivable definition of "hack" that this article would also fit.
It's a hack because it is an unusual or counter-intuitive way of solving a problem. Or meta-solve a problem -- recharge your mental batteries so when you get back you solve your real problem better, if you wish.
This is just as much a hack as articles about exercise or nutrition are a hack. They hack the hackers, who ... hack.
Re: How to Take a Walk
#26This guy here knows what it's all about:
http://imjustwalkin.com/
Re: How to Take a Walk
#27I took a stand-up comedy course a couple of years ago. I found out that it takes a long time to come up with material. You can't just sit down and start writing jokes. They come when they are ready and you'd better be ready to write them down.
When I had some time in the evenings to come up with material I would sit at home without much inspiration. However, I found that when I walked to the convenience store to get a snack, I would inevitably return with at least one new joke idea, maybe more.
Walking was such a predictably good way to loosen up my creativity that when I got stuck I would head for the door and tell my wife, "I'm going to the convenience store to buy a joke."
Re: How to Take a Walk
#28The Americans never walk. In winter too cold and in summer too hot. ~J.B. Yeats
Re: How to Take a Walk
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a fellow American who takes walks,I disagree with the perceived antagonism. I think part of the point is that there is something deep-seeded in our culture that punishes idleness. That is the social anxiety he describes. I do have a little anxiety when I'm going for a walk, alone, not particularly doing or thinking anything. Will people think I'm some sort of weirdo? The observation that this worry is itself worri…
An acquaintance of mine (Irish like me) visited the US some time in the mid 90s. He took a walk in a suburban area, and was surprised to find himself being followed by a police car before long. When they stopped and asked him what he was doing, it dawned on him that because he wasn't jogging, or walking a dog etc., someone had actually called the police when they saw a stranger walking aimlessly down their road. Need…
Reminds me of Bob Dylan being questioned by the police due to walking around in New Jersey.
The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident reported a man wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighbourhood several blocks from the oceanfront, looking at houses.
(...)
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2009/08/15/dylan-police.h...
Re: How to Take a Walk
#30I grew up in a SW Portland neighborhood with no sidewalks. The road shoulders were narrow, unsafe, and often muddy. I never saw people out for leisure walks. It just wasn't enjoyable.
Now I live in the outskirts of Portland, in a place with modern suburbs grown up around a quaint old town. Sidewalks are everywhere. I take walks all the time, and I see other people out for walks daily.
It's seems like common sense that urban and neighborhood design can have a huge impact on the livability of an area, but a lot of the suburbs created in the US abandoned the sidewalk to save a few bucks and cram more houses per acre. I don't know if the tide has turned, but I'd never live in a neighborhood without sidewalks again.
Home buying tip: Look for a neighborhood with a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. It's a small detail that has a big impact on "neighborhood" feel.