Wayfarer: The English Word for Someone Who Travels by Foot
On the virtues of walking, and, of course, with a little touch of sunglasses
What comes to mind when you think of wayfarer is actually quite predictable. A sunglasses model. A pair of glasses that will forever be residents of my bag and that I adore and cannot replace with something else. Of course, I can write about that someday, but today's topic is another wayfarer.
Did you know that the term "wayfarer" in English refers to someone who travels by foot? I just found out; please excuse my ignorance.
From an etymological point of view:
Wayfarer combines the words way and farer, which come from the Old English root fær, which means "journey, road, passage, or expedition."
When it comes to traveling on foot, I think of missionaries, monks, or pilgrims who walk long distances without complaining about climbing mountains or hills—tired but spiritually satisfied saints. People who have crossed long roads without the help of any vehicle, have experienced adventures, reached their destinations by struggling with fatigue, maybe foot wounds, and hunger, but have turned into more mature people after the journey.
Walking is a complex activity. In some ways, it is one of the most basic actions a person can perform, but in others, psychology, brain functions, and even philosophy enter the picture and transform a 30-minute walk into a life-changing experience.
We can all walk from the first year of our lives on (unless we have a special physiological disability). Nothing special is required; it is extremely simple. First, you learn to stay balanced while standing, then to move forward by moving your feet forward in turn. But just as the invention of fire was a watershed moment in human history, and we owe so much to Prometheus, walking is a watershed moment in every human being's life.
When the human cub learns to walk, the real transformation begins. She is now free to move. When a baby is unable to walk, she must rely on others to reach objects of interest. Once she is able to walk, she can reach anywhere on her own. And this has had a transforming impact on her life.
The act of walking, which means freedom for the baby, still expresses freedom for adults. Although traveling by car allows you to reach farther, walking is the ultimate form of freedom.
We engage all five senses when we walk outside, experiencing everything nature has to offer at the time, such as burning in the sun, feeling the wind, possibly getting wet in the rain, spotting a lizard on the ground, and seeing flowers we have never seen before. As a result, walking is one of the best ways to practice mindfulness—living in the present moment. Even walking meditation is possible.
Walking helps to stimulate our minds and even our creativity. That's why, after a long walk, solutions or ideas that we hadn't considered in hours suddenly appear.
I'm not the only one claiming this. There are many studies on the boosting effect of walking on creativity. One of them is “Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking” published in 2014 by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz at Stanford University.
In this study, they explain that walking, even as a purely physical activity has a huge impact on creativity.
In this study, the participants are divided into groups and asked to develop creative and actionable ideas in two stages. Some are asked to develop ideas while sitting in both phases, while others are asked to sit first and then walk, and still others are asked to walk first and then sit down. They also added ‘being outdoors’ while sitting or walking as a factor into the experiment. The result is incredibly intriguing.
The researchers state that “walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after.”
Walking substantially enhanced creativity by two different measures. For the three alternate uses studies, 81%, 88%, and 100% of participants were more creative walking than sitting. For the BSE1, 100% of those who walked outside generated at least one novel high-quality analogy compared with 50% of those seated inside.
Walking is an easy-to-implement strategy to increase appropriate novel idea generation. When there is a premium on generating new ideas in the workday, it should be beneficial to incorporate walks.
They note that walking outside increase the positive effect on creating new ideas:
Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair. Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies. The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable. 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.
In his relatively easy-to-read philosophic essay book A Philosophy of Walking, Frederic Gros, a French professor of philosophy and also editor of Michel Foucault's final lectures at the College de France, focuses on the philosophy of walking.
He explains how philosophers or thinkers like Thoreau, Nietzsche, Kant and Ghandi adopted walking as a mode of intensive thinking. Many of the thinkers walks for hours and spend the majority of the day alone. Their ideas take shape, particularly in nature and on long walks, and as a result of long walks becoming a habit, their characters and ideas are transformed.
Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit is another book about walking. Solnit focuses on the cultural effects of walking and walkers, as well as the importance of walking in our car-dependent, accelerated world. I haven't had the opportunity to read it yet, but I've added it to my reading list.
Walking as a longer activity in nature or city parks was the focus of this essay. However, walking in the city has a very different effect. That will be the topic of the next essay.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Thanks for reading!
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BSE: Barron’s symbolic equivalence task (1963). The BSE depends on the generation of analogies, which Gentner (2002) has called, “the engine of creativity” (p. 37). People produce analogies to base statements (e.g., “a candle burning low”). Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking
I'm such a fan of walking (and running) for generating and thinking through ideas! I try to run/walk in a large park near my apartment, but unfortunately, a lot of my walking happens around the city, so I'm looking forward to your next post!