Ponder Walks and Wander Walks: Thinking on the Go
👋 Hey Friends,
So, I’ve decided to try to write more short articles. I’ve realized that my perfectionist tendencies have crept in once again and are keeping me from posting more frequently. I’ve got a backlog of ideas that I keep tinkering with hoping one day they’ll be good enough to share. This little article is the first in an attempt to share the imperfect. Here’s a little idea I had on walks and how they facilitate thinking.
Walking is when i get my best thinking done. it turns out, this isn’t a novel finding — unfortunately i won’t be winning a nobel prize for this one. Many of the greatest thinkers in history have talked at length about the importance of walking in formulating their best ideas. I may not be one of those great thinkers, but man can i put on a killer impression from behind the veil of this blog.
💡 I have two kinds of walks: The Wander Walk and The Ponder Walk
The Ponder walk, as I’m calling it, is when I set out to reflect deeply on a single topic and need to get away from the background hum of email, whatsapp messages, slack, … you know — the bullshit. I usually do this when I’ve got a new research direction I want to flesh out, I’m having trouble parsing a difficult paper, or I’m in the midst of yet another existential crisis and have decided I need to revamp my values and life goals — again. I think the subtle stimuli of all that I encounter while walking keeps me just distracted enough to avoid being too aware of my own thoughts. Instead of trying to mold and perfect them, they just sort of flow on the topic without the worry of getting them right for a page or an audience. Often, when I get home, my ideas have coalesced into something that pushes me past impasse.
The Wander Walk is about wandering both physically and mentally. This is about letting go. I find there’s an exhaustion that comes from adhering to all the time management and productivity crap I’ve put in place to keep up with my own unattainable expectations. When I feel that exhaustion creeping in, that’s when I wander. There’s a recharging that happens from completely letting the mind go. When you spend all day reeling your mind back to whatever seems most important, it’s nice to let it loose for a while. I think of it like a pet dog, it’s behaved well enough for the day, let it chase whatever squirrel catches its eye for a bit.
FYI, this post idea came up during one of those Wander Walks.
Cheers,
Nathan Laundry
