We walk to work. Or rather, during the pandemic, walking has become a way of working – one of those everyday activities which help us to process information, shake up old thought patterns, and allow new ideas to percolate.
For many of us, the pandemic has limited where we can walk. The same routes around the neighborhood became worn and automatic: back-and-forth to the deli on the corner, or down to the beach where the tide has erased yesterday’s footsteps. But as the writer Robert MacFarlane notes in his book The Old Ways, repetition is no bad thing. “Paths are the habits of a landscape,” he writes. “Like sea channels that require regular dredging to stay open, paths need walking.”
The same might be said of thought-channels. As a practice of sustained noticing, walking the same routes over the course of a year has granted us a period of sustained noticing; a chance to witness the changes in our environment as the seasons shift and time does its work. In this way, walking works upon the walker: pulling them into the present and the patterns of time, opening the mind to ideas which – in the hands of the designer – may later translate to physical form.
We walk to work. Or rather, during the pandemic, walking has become a way of working – one of those everyday activities which help us to process information, shake up old thought patterns, and allow new ideas to percolate.
For many of us, the pandemic has limited where we can walk. The same routes around the neighborhood became worn and automatic: back-and-forth to the deli on the corner, or down to the beach where the tide has erased yesterday’s footsteps. But as the writer Robert MacFarlane notes in his book The Old Ways, repetition is no bad thing. “Paths are the habits of a landscape,” he writes. “Like sea channels that require regular dredging to stay open, paths need walking.”
The same might be said of thought-channels. As a practice of sustained noticing, walking the same routes over the course of a year has granted us a period of sustained noticing; a chance to witness the changes in our environment as the seasons shift and time does its work. In this way, walking works upon the walker: pulling them into the present and the patterns of time, opening the mind to ideas which – in the hands of the designer – may later translate to physical form.