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The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#71

Post by christophilus »

1782635782 wrote: post #60
mseebach wrote: post #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 thin…

> Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently You just made this up.... Firstly, you have never been around since the beginning of humans, and secondly, you haven't even read any history books if you think humans have always been extremely busy and that somehow they are not now. The opposite is actually true. Humans have had a lot more free time in the past. It i…

Yeah. A political scientist I know told me that at some points in Catholic history people had almost 1/3rd of the year off. I couldn't find a reference for that, but this site indicates about 1/4 of the year off as leisure time:

"Altogether there were about 80 days of complete rest with over 70 partial holidays, that is, about three months of rest spread over the year."

http://www.traditioninaction.org/History/A_021_Festivals.htm

Not sure about the veracity of that site, but that kind of leisure time is in keeping with much western history that I've read. Looking at a timeline, the Protestant work ethic seems to have played a pretty big role in shifting the work/leisure balance more towards work.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#72

Post by alexhawdon »

1782635782 wrote: post #60
mseebach wrote: post #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 thin…

> Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently You just made this up.... Firstly, you have never been around since the beginning of humans, and secondly, you haven't even read any history books if you think humans have always been extremely busy and that somehow they are not now. The opposite is actually true. Humans have had a lot more free time in the past. It i…

Absolutely. I recommend GP reads some Thomas Hardy to get a sense of what you mean. Back before the industrial revolution the lower classes would work 'enough' to sustain themselves.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#73

Post by neurobuddha »

I go on longs walks a lot, and a few months ago I bought a poker stick to pick up the plastic bottles I see littered everywhere. My walks are no longer purposeless, but I feel better when I come back with a garbage bag of plastic that will be recycled rather then end up in our soil and water supply.

Here's the poker stick I bought: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B0042SNCGA/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UT...

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#74

Post by lmm »

GrinningFool wrote: post #64
lmm wrote: post #8

So 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"?

The cool thing about it is that it's an easy thing to try for yourself [assuming you're not physically unable] and gather your own evidence. I can't believe these words are about to come off of my fingers, but -- if it works for you, then does it matter what a body of scientific research has to say about it? Because the benefits are at least in part subjective, this is a case where a sample size of one is sufficient.

I asked precisely because it doesn't work for me. As far as I can tell the article is nonsense. But I wouldn't necessarily know whether I was being more or less creative, so actual evidence would trump my personal experience there.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#75

Post by tluyben2 »

fitzwatermellow wrote: post #58
tluyben2 wrote: post #13

I walk insane lengths as it clears the mind and fosters creativity. I talk into my phone during that; either to colleagues or to a recorder and then type it in at home (no, speech to text does not work; if someone wants to work with me to get that working, that would be great but for now, it does not even work a bit; only gibberish comes out; it seems to have something to do with my way of talking which I am trying t…

You have described my situation to a tee. It doesn't work in the city. It must be in nature, and I must be alone. Except rather than the nitty gritty implementation details, I limit my mental explorations during perambulations to the higher level abstractions of architectural matters. I even wrote a toy "mobile web dicta phone" that uses the media recording api because I wanted a single click, distraction free way to…

Besides gaming for about 30min per day I spend most my free time on trying out little protypes which allow me to do this. Hopefully something will come out of it.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#76

Post by maroonblazer »

RobertoG wrote: post #41
kleiba wrote: post #11

There were times in my life (thesis writing) where I'd go and sit in the library all day to work and come home in the early evening. The psychological stress on me during that time was tremendous. Every evening, after coming home, I'd have a small dinner and then go for a one-hour walk, always the same route. At that time, I lived in a small town, and my route would take me down a dead-end street, across another one,…

"but apparently in that area, just being out and about on foot was enough of a reason to be considered suspicious." Maybe, this is an American thing. Some colleagues of me explain how, in a job trip to Atlanta, they decide to go back to the hotel walking. They could see the hotel from where they were, so, why not? Sure enough, the police stopped them and wanted to know what was wrong. They have a lot of fun explainin…

There are parts of downtown Atlanta that are dangerous to walk in, especially at night. The police may have thought the colleagues needed help.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#77

Post by randomgyatwork »

mseebach wrote: post #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 thin…

One of my favourite pastimes is walking, I do it daily. I'm also mostly thinking while doing it.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#79

Post by ethanbond »

RobertoG wrote: post #61
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes police will stop people who look the complete opposite of suspicious just to make sure they don't need help.

Yeah... but because they are walking.. I think that say something about how the city is designed.

Younger US cities aren't designed for walking so yes it looks weird when you're walking around.

I don't know anything about Atlanta but in Arizona, per parent comment's story, for example, it's strange to see people walking around because it's way too hot in 80% of the state to walk around for leisure. On top of that, the towns are so spread out that it makes no sense to walk from point A to point B.

So if people are walking around, they're doing so aimlessly in a climate that is not really conducive to doing so. It seems reasonable to think they're either in trouble or up to trouble.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking (2014)

#80

Post by tinbucket »

Walking is, I think, a combination of habit and culture.

Both sets of my grandparents, from opposite ends of the country, used to walk quite a lot without any real purpose for doing so. They did this well into their 80s, and so did their friends. It seemed just to be something they did, and always had done.

My parents, by contrast, almost never walk when they can drive, and will often drive to a park to let their dog off rather than walk her there and back. Many of my friends are the same. One goes so far as to drive five minutes, then deals with parking and paying for it, to get his lunch every day rather than simply walking for the same length of time -- he spends more time in traffic in his car than actually moving.

One colleague of mine at my last job was amazed that I walked from the train station to the office -- a walk of less than 10 minutes at a brisk pace; it didn't even occur to her to ask about how I'd covered the mile-and-a-half from my home to the train station at the other end. My total commute was about the same distance as hers, but it took me less time, cost me slightly less, and got me some exercise into the bargain.

Some evenings, my fiancée and I would go for a walk of a couple of miles just to get out of the house, or to enjoy warm weather, or just because.

Since leaving that job, I walk less overall. I also have a dog, now, the walking of whom replaced most of the purposeless walking I used to do in the evenings. Most of my walking, now, has 'purpose' because it's exercising the dog, or taking her out for toilet breaks.

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