Book Walking
I used to be an avid “reading walker” a few decades ago. That was back when I used to read 400+ books a year. I always had a book in my hands and I walked everywhere and was always reading as I walked. I read in the cafeteria line on my lunch break from my bookstore job and I read while I ate. I read as I walked to the cafeteria and on the way back. I read on the way to work and on the way home. Sometimes, when it was slow and no one was watching I read while at work. I read while I cooked, while I pooped and occasionally I would even read while I slept.
nellberam you made some great points in your story and I can attest to the validity of them. I once read the hardcover copy of G. I. Gurdjieff’s, Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson while walking. The book was well over 2,000 pages long and I’m guessing it weighed about 7 or 8 pounds. It took me almost an entire week to read that book and in the process my arms almost fell off. But I just couldn’t stop reading it. I had gotten so buff reading that book that after finishing it people began asking me if I had started lifting weights.
But I never read while I walk anymore…..
“ I had been walking nearly an hour each way to and from work out of cheapness embellished with principle: walking is free, it’s exercise, you’re engaging with your world, and it forces you to commune with your thoughts (because there’s nothing else to do). But after three years I had to admit the horrific truth: I had grown tired of my mind.”
Now, so many decades later, I still walk where ever I go. Yes, it is free; no car payments, no gas to regularly purchase, no car repair bills, and no car insurance to buy. And my carbon footprint is smaller than that of the average car-driving American. And yes, it is just about the best exercise there is.
My favorite thing about walking is that it allows me to engage with the incredible world out there in an intimate way. Nell, you said that walking forces you to commune with your thoughts. In my opinion, it is not the walking that forces that but rather our mental conditioning. Most all of us have endless loops of thinking going on in our noggins at all times. We have been conditioned to identify with those repetitive thoughts as to who we are. We have been taught that we are our thoughts so to be in a state of mindlessness where those thoughts are stopped is frightening because it is suddenly as if we no longer exist.
How can we engage with the wondrous world out there if we are engaged with our thoughts? I no longer read while I walk and I have been working really hard on no longer thinking while I walk. For me, walking has become a meditation of sorts. It’s a way for me to empty my mind of the ceaseless thinking that I’ve been a slave to for so many years.
I see the birds and listen to their beautiful symphonies. I watch the clouds. I see the bugs (and am careful not to accidentally step on one). I feel the wind on my skin. I stop and smell flowers. I stop and pick mulberries off the mulberry trees alongside my path. I notice all the myriad squirrels and bunny rabbits that my town is joyously infested with. I occasionally stop to hug a tree or just stare at a tree, luxuriating in its beauty. I breathe deeply the smells of the earth. I stop to watch the ducks and geese and pelicans on the pond on the other side of the railroad tracks. And when a train goes by I stop walking and watch the train, feeling the ground rumble under my feet.
I FULLY engage with nature and the world rather than just walking through it. When I see people walking our local nature trail with ipod ear buds in their ears listening to music I just want to cry. They are missing out on so much! The same goes for people reading books as they walk (which I used to be extremely guilty of) or people on a nature walk with their head down looking at their stupid smart phone. And then there are all the people walking with a blank (or angry) expression on their faces as they replay their endless thinking patterns in their minds while walking. None of these people are truly engaging with the world they are walking through.
Our music, our books, our technology, and our thinking are all wonderful things but they have also cut us off from nature and the real 3-D world around us. I feel that it is very important and healthy to disengage from all that stuff — especially the thinking — and go for a thought-free walk to reconnect with the world. It is best if this is done on a daily basis. I try to do this at least 2 or 3 times a day (weather permitting). It has drastically changed and enriched my life and helped me to realize that we live in a paradise (where ever we might live).
Many of us have “grown tired of our minds.” We escape from our minds with books and movies and music and video games and TV and many other diversions. But very few of us will simply go out of doors and consciously stop the endless thinking in order to open up to and commune with the paradise we live in. It is not something many of us will even consider doing. And few can consciously stop the endless thinking because it’s something they’ve never even tried to do. It takes a lot of repeated conscious effort to get good at doing that. I’ve been working on it for years and still have a ways to go.
But to make this effort to connect with the physical world is well worth it. Not only can we learn that we live in a paradise but we can also learn that we are more than our thoughts.
