Why Walks Work

On the phenomenal nature of walks

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Dear Bolu,

I've found that I need to be careful when reading out the title of this letter. It's a bit too easy for me to mispronounce "work" as "walk" and it can be embarrassing. Also, it's not a rarity for me to say "world wild web" instead of the appropriate full form of "www". I'm almost certain that these trifling errors of mine have something to do with the prevalence of Ws in surrounding words, and I must add that I'll gladly take those over Ls anytime.

Anyway, this letter has nothing to do with the workings of the internet or my troubles with common alliterations. I write you simply to elaborate on the phenomenal nature of walks. A walk is a simple activity, well, except you are a baby or you have some form of trouble moving. It is also never a demanding activity, again, except you are taking one of 500miles like The Proclaimers or you are stranded somewhere in the Sahara. In all, walks tend to happen with relative ease—the type of ease that accompanies putting a spoon of food in your mouth—but they are truly spectacular.

You have, dare I say, hit a roadblock at some point in your life. I do not speak of physical roadblocks—those could be quite catastrophic and inconveniently fatal. I speak more of mental blockages and barriers in your headspace. I suppose some folks find themselves in such situations more frequently than others, but it is certainly an experience that we can all relate to.

You could be hours into studying for a test, an exam, or a game show and you suddenly find yourself incapable of grasping a thought on the pages before you. You're confident it's not too difficult a concept to be beyond your understanding. In fact, you might have understood it in the past, heck, it could be your personal notes giving you a hard time. But the concept just isn't making it deep enough into your head for you to understand and retain.

You could be at work in that acclaimed cubicle that conveniently keeps the eyes of others away from your slumbering head or the open space that calls for swift reflexes when your boss approaches you at the climax of the YouTube skit you are giggling at. You could be lost in either setting and unable to make sense of the content on your screen.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

You could be preparing a document but you are being too sloppy. Your story is incoherent and all over the place like Coca-Cola or any other famous brand. Perhaps you've done this before. Perhaps every other day you make it work and you make it work so well. This time, however, you can't make one piece connect to the next and make it all connect as a whole.

You could also be searching for an idea—what to pen, say or do—in that popular who-knows-where dimension where creatives seem to get their ideas from. You could be brainstorming solutions to a dilemma, say how to seduce the neighbor next door, surreptitiously steal chicken wings from the pot, or maximize the time off work you're soon to get. You could find yourself in many similar situations where the famous lightbulb that appears just beside our heads and accompanies any eureka moment fails to come on. You're not quite sure if it is because of a power outage or broken filaments, but the light just doesn't come on and you are left clueless like a blind man in a sea of darkness.

At some point, you think you should take a walk. And like a lot of men, you must, first, consider the costs of this sojourn you are about to make. You know for a fact that it won't take you to the center of the world or halfway across the universe, but you must take some time to reconsider. How long would I be away? What would this accomplish? It's just a walk, why should it change anything?

You decide not to take a walk. You choose not to exercise your legs and rather, to find some other means to get away. But you never really get away, do you? You play a game, phone a friend (perhaps rehearsing for the game show), look at different tabs on your screen, watch a video, and so forth. At best, you get off your chair, stretch a little, and pace back and forth in the confines of your cubicle or room. But taking a mental break in the same physical space may not be enough to get you through the roadblocks in your path. You never really get away.  Your mind still suffers from a lack of fresh ideas and it seems like your tasks won't be getting done anytime soon.

When you finally take a walk, the magic happens.

You put some distance between yourself and the buttons on your keyboard. You break out of your chair and break free from its invisible chains. Your notes are out of your reach and your webcam is not in your line of sight. You break away from that rectangular space into a larger domain without any apparent restriction. You lose sight of the lights in the ceiling above and their reflection on the tiles below. You move out of that zone that has, in the last few hours, been consumed by your presence, the weight of your thoughts, and air from your lungs.

Photo by Emma Simpson on Unsplash

You walk.

And for some moments, your mind is blank. You are not quite conscious of the fact that it is blank. It wouldn't exactly be blank if you were conscious of the blankness, would it? Your mind is rid of those thoughts that have dominated your mental space. You see a narrow gutter or a puddle and you are careful not to step in it. You don't really think about it—it just happens. You are outside and you’re seeing more colors than you did a few minutes ago. You see and hear people talking to each other but you don't care to listen. The air smells nice and fresh unlike what is obtainable in your workspace. Your ears are treated to bird chirps and the sound of agile winds wheezing past rather than the inconvenient noise of the copy machine and the silent hums of the air conditioner.

Your mind breaks free. Your spine stretches. You are not thinking but you are taking in all around you. You glide across the road never knowing how fast or slow you are moving. Your mind is being decluttered but you don't know how it's happening. You feel good. You are looking forward and at the sky, and you can truly see clarity. You’re making headway in your head, and headway as you move.

After a while, you are back in your room or cubicle. Though the walk lasted only ten minutes, your mind traveled a thousand miles or halfway across the universe. You couldn't be freer. You are back and possibly no one notices you were gone for a few minutes, perhaps because they are slumbering in their cubicles or taking a walk themselves.

You're back and filled with ideas. You feel a bit refreshed and patterns more easily reveal themselves. Your mind focuses. It has just been to the ends of the world, what couldn't it grasp? The notes sink in, the slides make a better story,  and the ideas come more naturally. Such is the phenomenal nature of the walk.

Fin.

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Write you soon, merci !

- Wolemercy