The Wit’s Guide to Walking
Or, the mental plunger 🧠 🪠
Walking is a great way to clear the mind — but what if it clears too much? What if excessive walking turns you into someone who can only make pedestrian observations?
“It is a fact that not once in my life have I gone out for a walk.”
— Max Beerbohm
Beerbohm argued that, far from the oft-stated observation that walking helps stimulate the mind — “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking” Nietzsche posited, and Kierkegaard and Thoreau were right behind him — the people he walked with tended to turn their brains off while their legs were in motion.
“The ideas that came so thick and fast to him in any room, where are they now?” Beerbohm wrote of an enthusiastic rambler. “The man’s face that was so mobile is set now; gone is the light from his fine eyes.”
“I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time.”
— William Hazlitt
So: Less talk, more walk. Flap the quads, not the gums. Save the ideas for later. But what about those ideas? What exactly are the brilliant conclusions that you arrive at one step at a time? Rather than some step-by-step route to brilliance, perambulation is the physical cousin of doodling: A great way to clear the mental clogs, but as any plumber can tell you, don’t mistake those clogs for art! Unless you’re Picasso and you need to doodle up a bill payment.
“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”
— Steven Wright
Take William Wordsworth … please! The Romantic poet was one of the all-time walking enthusiasts — 180,000 miles, his contemporary calculated — and his free-flowing, feeling-all-the-feels poetry makes you wish he hadn’t stopped to pick up a quill. Daffodils! Lonely clouds! And, er, what about them? Doodles of the mind!
“I like long walks, especially when they’re taken by people who annoy me.”
— Fred Allen
What if the exact people for whom walking generates more ideas are the people whose ideas we could all use fewer of? There’s a constant phenomenon where smart accomplished people rediscover something obvious and take it upon themselves to tell the rest of us. Arianna Huffington did it a few years ago with sleep. Had we all heard about this? Turns out working 22 hours a day is bad, but closing your eyes for 8 hours is good! And there’s a subset of Smug Walkers — nicely identified in this 2019 Atlantic piece by Michael LaPointe — constantly doing the same.
“Hiking is just walking where it’s OK to pee.”
— Demetri Martin
There is a meme of considerable dankness we can draw from here, that of the midwit. The basic idea is that sometimes a simple idea is brilliant, so both the simple and the brilliant effortlessly grasp it. The trouble is the midwits, the 95% of us between the two extremes. What if a walk isn’t a way to dismantle capitalism and commune with the Romantic poets? What if it’s just a way to get away from your desk? Or to adapt the meme:
“To enjoy walking merely as walking was — and is — considered an eccentricity in the United States.”
— Edna Ferber
It’s probably true that walking can help generate great ideas. But if your great idea is that walking deserves more analysis, maybe your analysis deserves more walking.
This month’s Riposte Card!
The wonderful cartoonist Anjali Chandrashekar has drawn the September Riposte Card — an original work of art that gets mailed out to my 38 paying subscribers each month — and she chose to illustrate the above gem by Rebecca West. Subscribe today and I’ll mail three blank ones to you, along with samples of the six excellent earlier installments:
Quote Vote
“I encountered Mr. Hackman, an Englishman, who has been walking the length and breadth of Europe for several years. I enquired of him what were his chief observations. He replied gruffly, ‘I never look up,’ and went on his way.”
— N. Brooke, MD, from 1796, as featured in The Vintage Book of Walking.
It feels like fall, and since we did The Wit’s Guide to Summer, doesn’t the vastly superior shoulder season deserve an issue? Even if I am tempted to make a PSL joke?
Get Wit Quick No. 220 aims for 10,000 steps a day and 500 words a week, a healthy ratio. Though we all know the pedometer preset of 10K is based on a Japanese marketing ploy, and loyal reader Dr. Jacob L. sends along recent research that finds 2800 steps are good enough and benefits keep accruing until 8800 steps, after which you’re on your own, the doctors can’t help you, good luck out there and hope you packed a snack and a copy of my book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. Similarly loyal reader Tom W. sent along a brilliant Spanish proverb on the subject of drinks, which I will save for the day when the Quote Vote finally gets thirsty. Stomp on my ❤️ and it still registers as a positive tap.
Midwit!!! That's me. And I walk for health and to listen to podcasts and audiobooks, because it seems that's the only way I find time to do either. Forget the thoughts, they come just fine when I am sitting on the couch!
I kept on hearing "Walk Like an Egyptian" when I read this. Also made me think of Stephen King's ''The Long Walk.''