One of my adolescent fantasies has always been to go into the woods, think about transcendentalism,  find my own Walden pond and live there like Thoreau although it is a common misconception that he lived in isolation. It suited my introversion well but if I wanted to start somewhere, I would have started with the long walks inspired from his essay,” Walking”. 

I never went for walks before the pandemic. It is something that never attracted me. Walking is such an old person’s thing but it is plain old ignorance because if you just take a peek into the literature world, you can see how writers have always been into the art of walking slowly- Sauntering.

You have many kinds of walkers- there are ones that like to take a walk into the mountains and woods like Thoreau and Nietzsche. But you also have the city walkers like Walt Whitman who walked New York, Virginia Woolf who walked London and Baudelaire who came up with the concept of flâneurs– modern city walking- which later became an area of interest in Walter Benjamin’s own work. In the intellectual world, this topic is as old as day and night, dating as long back to 335 BC when Aristotle founded the peripatetic school, a concept based on the belief that the best work was done when walking around rather than sitting still like we do in lectures and classes now. 

It is not just that the writers and poets took walks but they sent their characters on walks too. It seems like they were acutely aware of the connection between thoughts, ideas, walks and the city. 

Of teaching Ulysses, Vladimir Nabokov wrote, “Instead of perpetuating the pretentious nonsense of Homeric, chromatic, and visceral chapter headings, instructors should prepare maps of Dublin with Bloom’s and Stephen’s intertwining itineraries clearly traced.” I love the one he drew. 

I am not going to talk about the health benefits of walking because that’s the least interesting aspect about walking. If anything, better health should be seen as a by-product. In the very first line of his book, “A Philosophy of Walking”, Frédéric Gros exclaims “Walking is not a sport. It is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found.” I agree. He continues, “You’re doing nothing when you walk, nothing but walking. But having nothing to do but walk makes it possible to recover the pure sensation of being, to rediscover the simple joy of existing, the joy that permeates the whole of childhood.”

In essence, this is everything and this is the reason one must go for walks. I have at least three different routes depending on the mood I am in but my most favourite one is not the picturesque beach which I like it but it’s just too crowded. My favourite route is actually around a tiny lake by my house. It’s not pretty or anything but that is not the point anyway. 

As a little boy, I used to fish there, unsuccessfully. To me, the trees always looked like wise old gents at a bar that you want to have a chat with. I feel like these trees have seen people’s heartbreaks, joy, their trips when getting high etc., and have so much wisdom to give away!

We can all agree that the world and our lives are chaotic- it’s the same everywhere, man. The antidote may just be taking walks. I am not exactly sure what it is but I believe it’s this intentional boredom that forces us to unclog the junk in our brain that overwhelms us. So, it’s not just for creatives, it is for anyone who needs to feel better mentally. And physically too. It is the best detox for an overstimulated mind- which we all seem to have with the news, social media and just about everything. 

So I have a couple of suggestions: 

• Take early morning walks before you spend any time on your phones. Why early in the morning? Because it fills you with so many possibilities early on and allows you to act upon whatever that is bugging you, which is something not possible in the evening.

• Don’t listen to music while taking these walks because you want to be able to listen to your thoughts. Is that a scary prospect? Yes. But you just have to do it! You don’t have to listen to me but listen to the greats. They had it figured out. 

Peace and grace,

Nikhil.