Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Walking Culture, a time for rumination and nobility of thought



Journal Entry: Weight = 173.2; Coinage = $.69, 9 pennies, 1 dime, 2 quarters; Glass bottles = 5; Best Coinage find = 64 cents in curb finds, two quarters, a dime, and four pennies. The MoneyWalker’s ventral striatum, the brain's reward region, is joy filled with all monetary finds, but finding coins along the curbs provides the most satisfaction. Two coins were especially nice, an old quarter and later an old dime; old in the sense that they had been ‘walked over’ many times and were laden with street corrosion.

Feature Entry: Anita Brookner, the winner of the prestigious UK Booker Award, has written more than twenty literary novels, all featuring lead characters that are dedicated walkers. The MoneyWalker is a big fan. The current read is Lewis Percy. Lewis, like all of her characters, battles with a hostel vortex of depression. Each chapter chronicles his “will to meaning” as a defense against being dragged under to a life of misery.

One of Lewis’s most successful strategies is his constitutional habit of taking long walks:
“Whatever the reason, he was not anxious to get home without some kind of interval rumination, some time to call his own. The idea of covering a long distance appealed to him. Gentlemen in Trollope, to whom he was devoted, even more than to his early heroes, covered vast distances and were thus able to sustain their noble thoughts. He resolved to walk home regularly, and to tell Tissy to expect him an hour later than his usual time.”

Thus, two of the benefits of those that subscribe to the culture of walking is the opportunity gained for rumination—time to reflect on serious matters of the mind; and second, to find time for noble thoughts.

MoneyWalker

1 comment:

  1. The time I spend walking is often spent on problem solving. I need to try harder on the "noble" part.

    Sounds like Mr. Percy discovered the benefits of endorphins.

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