When i was in my early 20’s i was terribly broke. I couldn’t even afford to buy antenna for my TV, and i definitely couldn’t afford internet. So i would quite often go out for walks to take up my free time, it gave me the opportunity to manage my thoughts, and i suppose the exercise helped with my depression and stress to some degree as well. I’d sometimes walk miles out of my way just to see if i could, not sure i’d do something like that these days but at the time i found it fairly enjoyable.
Now i will commute to work in the morning and i walk back home because i do find that the walk back helps me decompress from the work day. And i often will use that alone time to listen to podcasts 
(I saw this go by in the news about a month ago; I originally posted this on FB)
I like the story but, as for their conclusion “this means no music,” most of the time (unless I forget my earphones) I do listen to music during long walks. It’s something I started doing soon after I arrived at college.
On the other hand, someone’s writing books about walking.
I walked with and without music, and i don’t think it matters too much. I did find that my thoughts were different when i had music, but they were more narrative as in whatever i was listening to was the soundtrack to a daydream, or a little story i was crafting in my head.
Without music my thoughts meandered more, which can be good and bad. Sometimes i’d spend a long walk thinking about stressful or negative things, but who doesn’t do that i suppose. I’d say if you have an opportunity to go outside and walk, just do it. Music or not, that’s besides the point.
You gotta ask yourselves, benevolent and powerful BoingBoing curators, did this story need a goddamned animated GIF? It did not. It did not.
My wife and I often walk in our neighborhood in Oakland in the evening or afternoon. I often walk for an hour or so as basic cardio during the day (I have a back injury so I can’t run or use an elliptical or easily bike a lot).
I listen to my podcasts when I do walk. In fact, that’s the primary time I listen to podcasts. Since I work from home, it helps me get out of the house.
Don’t know if it counts, but I used to hike up the hills above Burbank, CA almost every day and find a place to sit and read or write until the sun set… No music, no purpose other than to find a quiet place without people.
I need to get back in the habit of taking a walk during the afternoon at work.
If you intentionally set out on a purposeless walk does that negate the purposelessness?
I’m only being half-facetious because it seems to me that almost any walk, even without a specific destination, has a purpose, even if it’s just to clear your head or an excuse to get out and enjoy the weather or stroll around the grounds of one’s palatial estate and see whether the daffodils are coming up.
There’s nothing wrong with a “purposeless walk” if you enjoy that sort of thing, but I’m also reminded of Coleridge’s This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison.
A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there!
Yes it did!
I suppose that it could have went with a standard pic:
Some places are more walkable or bicyclable than others.
Hiking is really not much more different either, there’s not much of a point to it other than enjoying being outside. Do we really need someone giving instructions as to how to take a walk?
Is my purposeless walk voided if I skip for a little bit?
Skipping is much more fun and more efficient than walking – when was the last time that the author enjoyed a purposeless skip?
The GIF has been altered. Pray I do not alter it further.
With Scouts, there was a march that one group I was in taught the kids.
The march goes:
1! (step-step-step)
2! (step-step-step)
3! (step-step-step)
4! (step-step-step)
1! 2! 3! 4!
Forward! Backward! Sides! Together! (Jump forward with both feet, jump backward with both feet, jump your feet apart, jump your feet together and then continue marching with…)
1! (etc.)
Sometimes I’m feeling goofy and I just start doing that out of nowhere.
Flagged as abuse.
No, I need a target. So going out on Saturday mornings to garage sales is as much an excuse for walking as to find neat things.
I’ve slowed down. I’ve never had a driver’s license, so it’s not like I’m replacing walking with driving, just out less. But two summers in a row, a few years ago, I had knee trouble. I felt disabled, unable to walk as far as usual. But instead of exploring, going incredible distances in retrospect, though always needing a target, the world seems smaller, I’m not as excited as when I was younger. Some of it is routine, the same route too many times.
3-4 times a week for at least an hour. walking is crucial for us work in front of the computer types.
I’m walking right now.
I tend to walk a lot given lack of transportation, money, and so on. However I live in an area not too terribly far from a nearby highway in an area that’s mostly flat fields. So it’s… a whole lotof nothing to look at and not terribly inspiring unless I’ve got music on hand.
Are you also talking and chewing gum at the same time? I’ve never mastered that part.
