Walking
5-20-06 Walking Is like Writing Or Making Love
Scripto ergo sum. Coito ergo sum. Ambulo ergo sum. (I write, therefore, I am. I make love, therefore, I am. I walk, therefore I am.) My last university essay occurred in the English Department PH D program at the University of Texas where I composed a paper on Henry Thoreau's famous essay "Walking." The paper wasn't much good. I didn't have anything to say. I simply didn't know anything at the time. So I just scribbled out a bunch of graduate school malarky and got an A-. Actually all of my ideas in that paper came from Irving Babbitt, the famous anti-Romanticist, whose book "Rousseau And Romanticism" I had read and reviewed as an undergraduate. Babbitt I later heard was essentially a Taoist and a Humanist and found Romanticism uncongenial to both of those movements of thought because it was essentially egomaniacal according to Babbitt's lights and anti-social. I gained the pleasure during that time, the Spring semester of 1968, of poring over Thoreau's wondrous essay in a strange city away from all my friends---and in fact surrounded by a complete world of strangers. I did not know one person in Austin, Texas. I write these words having just completed a 90-minute brisk walk.
Let me lay down a few ground rules that come to me after many years of jogging & now walking. This is a primal Esthetic experience. And as one walks one unwinds and one evolves. I like to not know where I am headed when I leave the house on an intended walk. That way I am surprised at where my legs carry me. And my interior then will also grow. I don't consider anything under 60 minutes an authentic walk. And in fact any decent walk should take at least 100 minutes or so. In order for one to realize any inner development. People who walk because the doctor says they should may indeed receive "benefits" from their walk. But they are not true Walkers. A true Walker walks because it is a Necessity & a True Love. As a True Writer must write---come hell or high water marriage or divorce----goddammit, I am going to WRITE MY BOOK. And if my love life goes to hell in a handbasket as indeed it has now for me for many many years so be it. The Woman must Understand this or she will never fathom me. So it is also with Walking. True Walking is A Vocation & an Obsession & an Ecstasy & it is also a continuous transformation of the Soul of the Walker. A walker is a Seer. There is no doubt about it. To walk is to see. And the world opens up as one hits the 80 minute mark, say, or the 100 minute mark or the 150-minute stripe. And one begins to experience the rapture of Sky, the absoluteness of air and trees and the Natural World. This will happen to any true walker. You will become one with Nature. And don't talk to me of mysticism. I am no mystic. But a Visionary, yes. Walking cleanses the body. It works on your liver and your inner organs. That is why I say a true walker is going to take longer than a half hour. You must really get that engine humming in order to purge your liver and kidneys and your heart and also your brain, your testicles. Walking is sexy. It is a tremendous goad to health of body and of mind. It clears the tracks. Today in total I walked 145 minutes. That is barely 2 and one-half hours. And the first 50 minutes was not at full tilt.
I'm recording this now for my own Pleasure. And it is seminal, embryonic. These are fragmented thoughts from one who has been running & walking very rigorously & sometimes laxly for the past 25 consecutive years in Los Angeles & Venice & Santa Monica & Goleta. I am a terrific admirer of Beauty. First of all in Woman. But when I'm walking I also love to note the structure & texture and ambiance of houses and buildings and of cars and vehicles & of course of the whole blasted world of Nature. I am a sky worshipper. Today walking through the parking lot toward the bus stop I noted a bumper sticker on a white Volvo that had these words: "WE DO NOT OWN THE EARTH, THE EARTH OWNS US. Chief Seattle." Ladies & Gentlemen of the Jury, those were some of the most powerful English words I have actually SEEN in quite some time. And they gave me a tremendous burst of LIFE! In this age of debris & noise with superfluousness all about us. YES, I rejoiced. The sky is greater than all of us and does not need any one of us. What do I have to add to that!
RLG Copyright 2006
Scripto ergo sum. Coito ergo sum. Ambulo ergo sum. (I write, therefore, I am. I make love, therefore, I am. I walk, therefore I am.) My last university essay occurred in the English Department PH D program at the University of Texas where I composed a paper on Henry Thoreau's famous essay "Walking." The paper wasn't much good. I didn't have anything to say. I simply didn't know anything at the time. So I just scribbled out a bunch of graduate school malarky and got an A-. Actually all of my ideas in that paper came from Irving Babbitt, the famous anti-Romanticist, whose book "Rousseau And Romanticism" I had read and reviewed as an undergraduate. Babbitt I later heard was essentially a Taoist and a Humanist and found Romanticism uncongenial to both of those movements of thought because it was essentially egomaniacal according to Babbitt's lights and anti-social. I gained the pleasure during that time, the Spring semester of 1968, of poring over Thoreau's wondrous essay in a strange city away from all my friends---and in fact surrounded by a complete world of strangers. I did not know one person in Austin, Texas. I write these words having just completed a 90-minute brisk walk.
Let me lay down a few ground rules that come to me after many years of jogging & now walking. This is a primal Esthetic experience. And as one walks one unwinds and one evolves. I like to not know where I am headed when I leave the house on an intended walk. That way I am surprised at where my legs carry me. And my interior then will also grow. I don't consider anything under 60 minutes an authentic walk. And in fact any decent walk should take at least 100 minutes or so. In order for one to realize any inner development. People who walk because the doctor says they should may indeed receive "benefits" from their walk. But they are not true Walkers. A true Walker walks because it is a Necessity & a True Love. As a True Writer must write---come hell or high water marriage or divorce----goddammit, I am going to WRITE MY BOOK. And if my love life goes to hell in a handbasket as indeed it has now for me for many many years so be it. The Woman must Understand this or she will never fathom me. So it is also with Walking. True Walking is A Vocation & an Obsession & an Ecstasy & it is also a continuous transformation of the Soul of the Walker. A walker is a Seer. There is no doubt about it. To walk is to see. And the world opens up as one hits the 80 minute mark, say, or the 100 minute mark or the 150-minute stripe. And one begins to experience the rapture of Sky, the absoluteness of air and trees and the Natural World. This will happen to any true walker. You will become one with Nature. And don't talk to me of mysticism. I am no mystic. But a Visionary, yes. Walking cleanses the body. It works on your liver and your inner organs. That is why I say a true walker is going to take longer than a half hour. You must really get that engine humming in order to purge your liver and kidneys and your heart and also your brain, your testicles. Walking is sexy. It is a tremendous goad to health of body and of mind. It clears the tracks. Today in total I walked 145 minutes. That is barely 2 and one-half hours. And the first 50 minutes was not at full tilt.
I'm recording this now for my own Pleasure. And it is seminal, embryonic. These are fragmented thoughts from one who has been running & walking very rigorously & sometimes laxly for the past 25 consecutive years in Los Angeles & Venice & Santa Monica & Goleta. I am a terrific admirer of Beauty. First of all in Woman. But when I'm walking I also love to note the structure & texture and ambiance of houses and buildings and of cars and vehicles & of course of the whole blasted world of Nature. I am a sky worshipper. Today walking through the parking lot toward the bus stop I noted a bumper sticker on a white Volvo that had these words: "WE DO NOT OWN THE EARTH, THE EARTH OWNS US. Chief Seattle." Ladies & Gentlemen of the Jury, those were some of the most powerful English words I have actually SEEN in quite some time. And they gave me a tremendous burst of LIFE! In this age of debris & noise with superfluousness all about us. YES, I rejoiced. The sky is greater than all of us and does not need any one of us. What do I have to add to that!
RLG Copyright 2006
posted by rlg at 8:15 PM
2 Comments:
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Interesting site. Useful information. Bookmarked.
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