Take a Walk
"It is only ideas gained from walking which have any worth." - Friedrich Nietzsche
ONE IDEA
To have more creative and insightful ideas, take more walks.
ONE ACT
The act is simple: Walk.
Throughout history, famous writers, scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs have used walking as a way to clarify their thinking and generate new ideas. Some examples:
Charles Darwin - Darwin had a walking track at his house which he called his ‘thinking path.’ He’d walk it every morning and every evening, simply allowing his mind to wander.
William Wordsworth - The famous poet is believed to have walked 180,000 miles in his lifetime. As he walked, he would recite lines of poetry over and over as it was often hours until he got home.
Nikola Tesla - Tesla discovered the theory of rotating magnetic field, one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, while out on a walk through Budapest in 1882. He walked every day.
Daniel Kahnemann - “I did the best thinking of my life on leisurely walks with Amos (Tversky).” That thinking led to a Nobel Prize and the sale of over 2 million copies of ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’.
Other notable walkers - Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sigmund Freud, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ernest Hemingway and Søren Kierkegaard.
ONE QUESTION
Is my mind too cluttered for creative thoughts to flourish?
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist who creates sensory-rich art. He uses light, water and air temperature to turn entire rooms into artistic displays.
‘Abstract: The Art of Design’ is a 45-minute documentary about how he does this. Watch it, and then go for a walk.
P.S. I’ve got a new article coming out tomorrow. It’s called ‘The Problem with Good Grades.’ You get early access to it here.
P.P.S. If you enjoyed that, hit share and send it to somebody else who should take a walk.