In what passes for a breathless lede on the BBC, Finlo Rohrer writes,

A number of recent books have lauded the connection between walking – just for its own sake – and thinking. But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk?

It seems to me that if there’s a positive link between walking and thinking, then it’s not really so purposeless anymore, is it? Roher’s article lists all sorts of famous folks who are known to have enjoyed a good walk, and that’s not for the exercise value.

It’s hard for the modern overscheduled multitasker to accept the idea of “for its own sake” so I’ll make the observation that a random walk can deliver random insight, or on a more modest scale, a chance encounter with a new place or a new point of view.

a random find on a random walk

And for the modest price of admission, a small insight is more than good enough for me.