On Walkabouts – 200 words project

This week’s 200 word project idea found in Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

What is it that is so magical about walking? I’m not the first nor the last to wonder about this. This process of locomotion, of moving from one place to another on your own power, what is it about this act which seems to have such a huge impact on our minds?

When your walk is hard – a uphill climb, or fast – running, something happens to the brain that it relaxes and let go. And then, it kicks into a different gear and epiphanies and ideas all bubble up. A calm walk around the block can be a cure for the post-lunch lethargy in the afternoon or a release of stress. When you don’t know what to, just take a walk and the boredom is gone.

It appears that a lot of creative people, a lot of innovators all have a innocuous walk in their daily routine.

But the closest description of what walking does, is what Rolf Potts says in ‘Vagabonding’. Walking to find yourself, to make yourself whole. Walking as a way to come to terms with ones responsibilities?

When I read this, I caught myself nodding over and over again. ‘Yes. Yes!’ I know, I recognize from beyond logic, that this is what happens on those long walks taken to ‘clear the mind’ or ‘deal with the situation’ or just because ‘I want to feel better’.

“… walkabout acts as a kind of remedy when the duties and obligations of life cause one to lose track of his or her true self. To correct this, one merely leaves behind all possessions (except for survival essentials) and starts walking. What’s intriguing about walkabout is that there’s no physical goal: It simply continues until one becomes whole again.”

-Rolf Potts in Vagabonding

Book Source: Public Library