We begin A Philosophy of Walking in Happiness today. Frederic Gros clearly derives great satisfaction from his perambulations, as I do from mine. If I've learned anything about happiness it's that you have to keep doing the things that satisfy, if you want to get it and keep it.
Gros says mercantilism brought an invasive "sporting spirit" to the child's play of walking, with all the gear-and-apparel fetishism. But walking was in fact a popular spectator sport, back in the day (see Adam Gopnik's discussion of Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favorite Spectator Sport), and while we've thankfully moved past that inexplicable obsession (never mind Olympic racewalking, still a thing) the sporting spirit may be inescapable in any public endeavor involving physical exertion in this sport-manic culture. The "only performance that counts" is sky and landscape. But do go ahead and count your steps, if that gets you out and going.
Is walking an escape? That implies a dissatisfaction with normal life that the well-adjusted walker has already left behind. But it's good to get away from the web on a regular basis. I'm not so sure about personal identity ("the temptation to be someone"), which I feel I actually inhabit more intimately when walking than not.
But there is such a thing as too much self-awareness, as evidenced by Friedrich Nietzsche in his final Ecce Homo phase. "Why I Am Such a Good Walker" is an irresistible parody chapter title, but it's also a cautionary reminder that walking should takes us out of ourselves and not just further into an egocentric hole.
Rebecca Solnit's wonderful Wanderlust documents Nietzsche's pedestrianism, in more than one sense. "The young Friedrich Nietzsche declares with superb conventionality, “For recreation I turn to three things, and a wonderful recreation they provide!—my Schopenhauer, Schumann's music, and, finally, solitary walks.”
Should we disbelieve any idea "not born in the open air and of free movement"? That's a little harsh. I'd say we should take every idea for a walk and see how it holds up. But a few good ideas have come to some relatively less ambulatory folk - Stephen Jay Gould and Stephen Hawking for instance (says Chris Orlet)... but what more might they have achieved, we can only wonder.
"The Wanderer and His Shadow," in Human, All Too Human, was the product of Nietzsche's great discovery: Sils-Maria, the Upper Engadine, and the ascendant peripatetic life. "All of it except a few lines was thought out en route," scribbled in Moleskine-like notebooks. Are there any present-day wanderers dictating the next Zarathustra into their iPhone recorders?
Not a few young Nietzscheans have ultimately fallen out with their misanthropic and misogynistic hero, as Gary Kamiya did after visiting his haunts in Sils Maria.
Nietzsche's walks differed from Immanuel Kant's, whose clockwork boulevard strolls were more a "distraction from work" than its precondition. "It is our habit to think outdoors..." Thinking outdoors, unchained from the anchoring dead-weight of desk and domicile, frees us from the weighted "thought of others." Sort of. No one who reads is ever entirely free from the thought of others. That's not dependency, necessarily, but an asset and resource.
Why did Nietzsche preferred climbing to flatland perambulating? Because it (possibly) affords a more detached and independent outlook. "One needs to be unconstrained to think far."
The experience of walking, particularly long repeated excursions on familiar paths, evokes for Gros Nietzsche's startling version of Eternal Recurrence. Everything that has been, will be, again and again. I know the feeling, from my daily morning dog-walks in the neighborhood. We traverse the same ground, at the same time and pace, and we affirm every step. So many familiar and anticipated views deliver "a vibration of the landscape" that either resonates or wearies, depending on our choice. The dogs always clearly choose affirmation, and greet every walk with fresh anticipation and the excited expectation of novelty. Every morning is for them the first morning. I try to emulate their attitude.
When Nietzsche discovered Turin, Italy, in "the final act of his life," he had little time left before megalomania would consume his remaining clarity and sanity. "Long walks on the banks of the Po enchanted him," bringing "a renewal of joy... a sudden access of happiness," and the wanderer's resurgence. “My thoughts’, said the wanderer to his shadow, ‘should show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me where I am going. I love ignorance of the future and do not want to perish of impatience and premature tasting of things promised.”
Not a few young Nietzscheans have ultimately fallen out with their misanthropic and misogynistic hero, as Gary Kamiya did after visiting his haunts in Sils Maria.
Yes, part of Nietzsche would always stand far above the tree line, and I would treasure that iciness. But I had to walk on the paths where I could go.
Still confused, I stood in the doorway. And then, as a gift, the following words came into my head, words spoken by Zarathustra to his disciples, disciples that Nietzsche himself never had. ''You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? . . . Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.''
I took a last look at the room. Then I walked out the door.
Why did Nietzsche preferred climbing to flatland perambulating? Because it (possibly) affords a more detached and independent outlook. "One needs to be unconstrained to think far."
The experience of walking, particularly long repeated excursions on familiar paths, evokes for Gros Nietzsche's startling version of Eternal Recurrence. Everything that has been, will be, again and again. I know the feeling, from my daily morning dog-walks in the neighborhood. We traverse the same ground, at the same time and pace, and we affirm every step. So many familiar and anticipated views deliver "a vibration of the landscape" that either resonates or wearies, depending on our choice. The dogs always clearly choose affirmation, and greet every walk with fresh anticipation and the excited expectation of novelty. Every morning is for them the first morning. I try to emulate their attitude.
When Nietzsche discovered Turin, Italy, in "the final act of his life," he had little time left before megalomania would consume his remaining clarity and sanity. "Long walks on the banks of the Po enchanted him," bringing "a renewal of joy... a sudden access of happiness," and the wanderer's resurgence. “My thoughts’, said the wanderer to his shadow, ‘should show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me where I am going. I love ignorance of the future and do not want to perish of impatience and premature tasting of things promised.”
Like his Prophet Zarathustra, Nietzsche came too soon. Then he left, impatiently. Will his promise be fulfilled? Should we want it to be? Something to ponder, as we wander.
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Today is the birthday of George Boole (1815) (books by this author), the English mathematician responsible for Boolean algebra, whose three basic operations of AND, OR and NOT, became the basis of comparing sets of things mathematically... WA
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Today is the birthday of George Boole (1815) (books by this author), the English mathematician responsible for Boolean algebra, whose three basic operations of AND, OR and NOT, became the basis of comparing sets of things mathematically... WA
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