Mind afoot

“It is said that in the future there shall come a time when all gladness shall fail and sorrow shall sweep the lonely land.”

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As I write these very words, I’m on a walk through nature. Some of the greatest minds in history came to their best insights while walking. Obligatory Thoreau quote:

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”
— Thoreau, “Walking”

The word walk has an etymology linked to old roots meaning to roll or turn. So in a way, walking is like being a rolling ball — a mind rolling forward, settling into grooves. Repeated walks don’t just wear down paths in dirt; they wear patterns into your thinking. Familiar mental terrain. Places your thoughts go before you even realize they’ve gone.

Okay, maybe the metaphor’s not perfect — but walking is like meditation’s physical twin. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, walking in nature just works. It clears things out. You don’t always know what until it’s gone.

Arthur Conan Doyle — through Sherlock Holmes — described the brain like an attic:

“I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose... A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort... Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic... He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work... It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent... For every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.”
— A Study in Scarlet

In the same way, I think walking helps you clean up that attic — brush aside the cobwebs, re-stack the useful tools, get rid of the junk crowding out the good stuff.

There’s research backing this up too. One study found that even brief walks can blunt negative mood states (PMC6064756), though the sample size is small (n = 66). More interesting to me is free walking — walking without a fixed route — which has been shown to improve divergent thinking, the kind of thinking that generates new ideas. As the Stanford study put it:

“Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity.”

My opinion on why walking is so good. Not scientifically backed but personal experience. The repetitive movement of your feet on the ground is kind of meditative in a way analogous to the breaths in meditation. Additionally, the breaking of your traditional surroundings is helpful in distancing yourself from a problem which can often let you step back and fix it.

So yeah — try it. Take a walk. Go outside. You don’t have to aim for clarity, but it might find you anyway. I especially like nighttime walks, when the world is quiet and you can actually hear your own mind again. :). Additionally, it might help you with your touch grass streak: https://touchgrass.now/.

If you wish to contact me, please comment below. Thank you for reading. I am working on improving.