THE PHILOSOPHY OF WALKING

There are many ways to walk. Book review. A philosophy of Walking . Fréderic Gros. Verso books.

Hikers. Are they in time or space?

A Philosophy of Walking . The title caught my eye as it stood among abandoned Icelandic crime novels on a shelf in a wilderness cabin in Iceland. We have no wilderness in Denmark where the human world ends. From the cabin I could see hikers passing the mountain pass in tenacious ant processions. Some took a detour to the cabin, took a short rest and enjoyed the grandiose view, only to set off again down towards the human world. These hikers don't just walk, they trek the mountain. But hiking is not a sport, writes Gros; “Putting one foot in front of the other is child's play. When walkers meet, there is no result, no time.” That interests me. The aimless. The timeless. If we focus on the goal, we are in time. And not quite here. Where all the good things happen.

It makes sense that the greatest thinkers have reached their deppets thinking while walking. Rousseau, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Kant, Hölderlin and Gandhi were all walkers and used walking as a method for reflection. In Philosophy of Walking, Frederic Gros examines one topos of the philosophy of walking in each chapter and takes the reader on a journey through the philosophers of walking. Not because they are philosophers of walking, but because they philosophize with walking.

Gros examines the journey both from his own walking practice (speaking of praxis - walking can be a spiritual practice - that is, a recurring exercise that brings the practitioner into divine contact, not through faith, but through world encounter) - as, for example, in the chapter Slowness; “Slowness means cleaving perfectly to time, so closely that the seconds fall one by one, drop by drop, like the steady dripping of a tap on stone. This stretching of time deepens space.” The good walk happens when we don't think about reaching the destination. And the good walker is one who walks with confident slowness. “He glides. A bad walker accelerates, slows. The illusion of speed is that it saves time”.

And Gros draws from his own thoughts to famous thinkers and poets whose lives have been about walking as a life approach. For example, the slowness of Mahadma Gandhi's walking was a political rebellion against the speed of Western accelerated thinking. In distrust of the machine and the mindless production mentality that he experienced coming from the West, walking became his political manifesto; Pacifism as expressed in a peaceful slow, humble walk.

A completely different type of wanderer is, for example, Arthur Rimbaud in Longing to be Free; The Poet-Seeer wandered away from home at 15 to see the world. He had to go to Paris. Was brought back home. And ran away again. “I'm a pedestrian, nothing more”. Or nothing less, one would think. On his death certificate it said; “Born in Charleville, passing through Marseille”. Only passing through. His wanderings were, like his personality, a crackle of aggressive energy as long as he was in the world.

Or about loneliness and about walking alone or together :

"Ought one really walk alone? Nietzsche, Thoreau and Rousseau are not alone in thinking so. Being in company fostles one to jostle, hamper, walk at the wrong speed for others. When walking it's essential to find your own basic rhythm, and maintain it. The right basic rhythm is the one that suits you, so well that you don't tire and can keep it up for ten hours. But it is highly specific and exact. So that when you are forced to adjust to someone else's pace, to walk faster or slower than usual, the body follows badly.

The challenge of walking with others is the same for the walker as it is for the runner - it is rare to find a common trot, and the more people there are, the harder it is. The secret of the great thinkers is that they have found their own walk at their own unique pace.

"However, complete solitude is not absolutely essential. You can be with up to three or four. With no more than that, you can still walk without talking. Everyone walks at their own speed."

Let us walk together until the presence unfolds like a wave, as Gros describes it so beautifully. "The presence unfolds like a wave." Let us play in the wave. And be in rebellion. And in rebellion. Towards the open horizon.