On Walking

“Before the advent of scientific evidence and philosophical guidance on the subject, literary odes to the creative and health benefits of walking flourished... Writers from Petrarch to Franz Kafka to Will Self have recorded their enthusiasm for, in Minshull’s words, ‘ambling, rambling, tramping, trekking, stomping and striding.’ Higher-quality endorsements of the creative value of walking than these would be hard to find. Yet the more I read, the more questions this 21st-century renaissance of pedestrian evangelism raised in my mind. No, I haven’t lost my desire, Kierkegaard, but I think about my desire differently—and wish I didn’t.”

Michael Lapointe, “The Unbearable Smugness of Walking,” theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/how-walking-became-pedestrian-duncan-minshull-erling-kagge-walking/592792/. I must admit to the benefits of peripatetic thinking. Very lucky to have Newcastle’s beaches for its particular joys of ambulation.