Leading thinker Frédéric Gros records the many varied ways we walk from point A to point B — the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble — and shows what they say about us in A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in France.
Other intellectuals, according to Gros, considered walking as an important part of their practice as well. On his travels, he mulls about Thoreau's eager solitude in Walden Woods, as well as the reason Rimbaud walked furiously while Nerval rambled to heal his sorrow. He demonstrates how Rousseau walked to contemplate and how Nietzsche explored the hills to write. To avoid the necessity of contemplation, Kant marched through his hometown every day at exactly the same hour. A Philosophy of Walking is a brilliant and intellectual credo for placing one foot in front of the other that is both amusing and informative.
By walking, you escape from the very idea of identity, the temptation to be someone, to have a name and a history. Being someone is all very well for smart parties where everyone is telling their story, it's all very well for psychologists' consulting rooms. But isn't being someone also a social obligation which trails in its wake – for one has to be faithful to the self-portrait – a stupid and burdensome fiction? The freedom in walking lies in not being anyone; for the walking body has no history, it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial life.
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