necessary for his physical and mental wellbeing. But they were equally necessary for his creativity and inspiration.
As he walked, he would think. And, as thoughts occurred to him, he would jot them down in a notebook. This method of composition gave his philosophy and his writing a very distinctive character. It gave them a boldness and a free-spiritedness that would have been absent had he remained at his desk.
Indeed, Nietzsche went so far as to claim that thinking-while-walking was the only way to do philosophy. In his book Twilight of the Idols , which he composed in Sils-Maria in the summer of 1888, he wrote: ‘A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.’
In his earlier book The Gay Science , he criticized the practice of thinking and writing indoors, hemmed in by narrow walls and low ceilings ‘with compressed belly and head bent over paper’. Such surroundings and such a posture, he claimed, can give rise only to stale, constipated thoughts.
He wrote: ‘It is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.’
Like Dickens, Russell, and Nietzsche, I too – in my own small way – can testify to the link between walking and creativity.
For me, JoGLE wasn’t entirely a holiday. I had very little in the way of work to do, but I did have to produce my ‘Living’ column for Singapore’s national newspaper, The Straits Times , once a fortnight.
Generally, I find writing it – or, indeed, writing anything – very hard work. I dither about, and suffer crises of confidence, and stare at a blank screen, and go over and over the same few lines without making any actual progress, and generally have a difficult time of it.
But during JoGLE, I wrote more quickly and easily than I have ever written before. I dashed off my column, which normally takes me anything between eight and twelve hours, in just three or four hours – and that while lying in a backpacker tent with no laptop.
The reason was simple. Although I gave no specific thought to my column as I walked, and although I didn’t consciously set out to think about anything at all, my mind was constantly turning over thoughts and ideas.
Like Tolstoy’s Pierre, my soul was occupied every day with things ‘important and comforting’, and so I always had something worthwhile to share.
At Drymen, we camped on a rough-and-ready farm campsite, and then set off, the next morning, on the final section of the West Highland Way.
This was a flat and easy thirteen-mile walk, which took us out of the Highlands, through some rural lowlands and into the centre of Milngavie (pronounced Millguy or Mullguy ), a commuter town situated just six miles from Glasgow city centre.
Overall, the walk was very pleasant, as far as I recall. But the thing about it that sticks in my mind is the shock and dismay Wendy and I felt as we entered the outskirts of town and found the footpaths, verges, and bushes littered with cigarette butts, crisp packets, fast-food cartons, and dog-shit.
When you live in a town or a city, you get so used to that stuff that you forget how ugly and depressing and dehumanizing it all is. But after spending a few weeks on the moors, in the glens, and beside the lochs and streams, you see it all afresh – and it disgusts you.
We dutifully visited the obelisk that marks the southern end of the West Highland Way, which is incongruously situated on a pedestrianized street in the town centre, and then shopped for supplies, before heading a mile or so out of town to our campsite at Bankell Farm.
That night, just before sleep, a strange and unexpected thought entered my head.
Up to that point, during four weeks of JoGLE, I’d always thought of our backpacker tent as nothing more than a necessary inconvenience.
Necessary , because backpacking is the
As he walked, he would think. And, as thoughts occurred to him, he would jot them down in a notebook. This method of composition gave his philosophy and his writing a very distinctive character. It gave them a boldness and a free-spiritedness that would have been absent had he remained at his desk.
Indeed, Nietzsche went so far as to claim that thinking-while-walking was the only way to do philosophy. In his book Twilight of the Idols , which he composed in Sils-Maria in the summer of 1888, he wrote: ‘A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.’
In his earlier book The Gay Science , he criticized the practice of thinking and writing indoors, hemmed in by narrow walls and low ceilings ‘with compressed belly and head bent over paper’. Such surroundings and such a posture, he claimed, can give rise only to stale, constipated thoughts.
He wrote: ‘It is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.’
Like Dickens, Russell, and Nietzsche, I too – in my own small way – can testify to the link between walking and creativity.
For me, JoGLE wasn’t entirely a holiday. I had very little in the way of work to do, but I did have to produce my ‘Living’ column for Singapore’s national newspaper, The Straits Times , once a fortnight.
Generally, I find writing it – or, indeed, writing anything – very hard work. I dither about, and suffer crises of confidence, and stare at a blank screen, and go over and over the same few lines without making any actual progress, and generally have a difficult time of it.
But during JoGLE, I wrote more quickly and easily than I have ever written before. I dashed off my column, which normally takes me anything between eight and twelve hours, in just three or four hours – and that while lying in a backpacker tent with no laptop.
The reason was simple. Although I gave no specific thought to my column as I walked, and although I didn’t consciously set out to think about anything at all, my mind was constantly turning over thoughts and ideas.
Like Tolstoy’s Pierre, my soul was occupied every day with things ‘important and comforting’, and so I always had something worthwhile to share.
At Drymen, we camped on a rough-and-ready farm campsite, and then set off, the next morning, on the final section of the West Highland Way.
This was a flat and easy thirteen-mile walk, which took us out of the Highlands, through some rural lowlands and into the centre of Milngavie (pronounced Millguy or Mullguy ), a commuter town situated just six miles from Glasgow city centre.
Overall, the walk was very pleasant, as far as I recall. But the thing about it that sticks in my mind is the shock and dismay Wendy and I felt as we entered the outskirts of town and found the footpaths, verges, and bushes littered with cigarette butts, crisp packets, fast-food cartons, and dog-shit.
When you live in a town or a city, you get so used to that stuff that you forget how ugly and depressing and dehumanizing it all is. But after spending a few weeks on the moors, in the glens, and beside the lochs and streams, you see it all afresh – and it disgusts you.
We dutifully visited the obelisk that marks the southern end of the West Highland Way, which is incongruously situated on a pedestrianized street in the town centre, and then shopped for supplies, before heading a mile or so out of town to our campsite at Bankell Farm.
That night, just before sleep, a strange and unexpected thought entered my head.
Up to that point, during four weeks of JoGLE, I’d always thought of our backpacker tent as nothing more than a necessary inconvenience.
Necessary , because backpacking is the
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