The Art of Manliness - #560： The Magic of Walking

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast walking can seem

00:00:11.980 well rather pedestrian but my guest today makes the case that walking can act as a gateway to

00:00:16.780 explore memory meaning and what it means to be human his name is arlene kage he's an adventurer

00:00:21.380 and philosopher we had him on the show last year to discuss his book silence that's episode number

00:00:25.500 433 if you want to check that out arlene's latest book is called walking we begin our conversation

00:00:30.380 discussing the connection between bipedal locomotion in silence and how walking instead of driving can

00:00:35.660 help slow down time and deepen our memories arlene makes the case that embracing voluntary hardship

00:00:40.200 can enrich your life and how walking can be a step towards that he then shares why going for a walk

00:00:44.840 can help you solve problems why most great philosophers were also committed walkers what

00:00:48.540 the adam and eve story can teach us about the need for exploration and how walking can be one of the

00:00:52.780 most radical things you can do in the modern age you want to take a walk after listening to this

00:00:56.580 show or maybe you'll walk while you're listening either way after it's over check out our show notes

00:01:01.000 at aom.is walking arlene joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:05.860 all right arlene kage welcome back to the show thank you brett thank you so we had you on last year

00:01:21.300 to talk about your book silence you got a new book out called walking one step at a time how is this

00:01:28.920 book walking a continuation of your thoughts in your book silence i think it very much is you know i

00:01:34.840 walked a few years ago i walked alone to the south pole for 50 days and nights under the midnight sun

00:01:41.180 as the first in history with absolutely in absolutely total silence and somehow you know silence is

00:01:50.780 as abstract as walking is concrete and it's very much about inner silence so somehow walking and

00:01:59.720 silence belongs together belong together well a lot of times people when they're walking

00:02:04.860 they aren't and they're not at the south pole like you were they're surrounded by traffic dogs

00:02:11.480 neighbors but you still think there's a silence going on when even when you're walking around in a

00:02:16.060 busy city neighborhood absolutely you know it doesn't have to be somehow i think in a in a noisy

00:02:22.920 city or noisy daily life you need to invent your own silence you know you know you can't wait for

00:02:28.300 silence to come to you and i think by walking it's so much easier to find this inner silence compared to

00:02:36.060 like sitting down or you know looking into a screen well one of the interesting things you start off

00:02:42.680 talking about in the book with walking is that it can change our sense of time compared to when we

00:02:48.980 drive or like or on a bus or a train or airplane so what happens what do you think happens when we

00:02:55.540 walk how does it slow down or speed up time you know somehow time passes much more quickly when you

00:03:01.980 increase your speed of travel and i you know it's somehow when you speed up in a car it's like time

00:03:11.900 narrows in and when you slow down when you walk it's like time is is is expanding and it's counterintuitive

00:03:20.880 because we think oh well if i can get someplace faster i'll have more time to do the things i want

00:03:27.760 to do but that's that's not the case i mean in sort of lived experience like phenomenology

00:03:33.760 right you you get there fast but then you still feel like i have no time like that just went by

00:03:39.100 so fast but if you take a walk it seems to prolong the experience exactly and i think you know that's

00:03:46.360 something everybody who walks you know that's the experience everything everybody you know shares

00:03:50.780 that's kind of the great secret all walkers share that time is prolonged when you walk it's like a

00:03:56.980 time machine and of course you know mathematically you know what you said is true that if you drive

00:04:03.960 instead of walking you save time my experience somehow in real life is absolutely the the opposite

00:04:10.940 when i speed up i don't experience anything everything is in a rush and when i eventually get to the place i

00:04:17.820 want to go to i you know i don't have any memories i didn't you know nothing happened but when i walk the

00:04:24.800 same distance i see things i listen i smell things the environment is changing much more slowly and

00:04:33.120 you know it's it's enriching my life so walking can not only prolong your life because it helps your

00:04:39.920 health right so it'll help you live to old age but it can actually make you feel like feel at on a

00:04:45.640 like a mental level an emotional level that your your life is longer yeah absolutely as i said you know

00:04:51.040 it's obviously if you walk a lot you will live longer you will have a more healthy life your heart

00:04:57.080 will beat you know in a better in a better way your lungs works better you sleep better at night

00:05:02.560 that's only half the truth and my kids they kind of kept on asking me when they were small i had three

00:05:08.640 three daughters they kept on asking me dad why do we have to walk when it's so much faster to drive

00:05:15.780 and you know that's a very good question and i found it very difficult to come up with good

00:05:22.440 answers to that question and you know i tried to tell them you know all these health benefits but

00:05:27.000 of course that's only boring to kids so you know that's one of the reasons i sat down to write this

00:05:32.720 book to write about you know what you what kind of wonders your feet can do to you and you know it's a

00:05:40.300 kind of a little mystery because in each foot you have this 26 bones 33 joints so more than 100

00:05:47.380 tendons and somehow those feet can become your best friends so you walked to the south pole it took you

00:05:54.880 50 days did did it feel longer than 50 days did it feel like you were there for eternity i mean that

00:06:01.160 yeah you know this kind of strange feeling that you on one way you feel that you are there for eternity

00:06:06.560 and at the same time you also feel that it's just this kind of tiny second of your whole life so

00:06:14.440 somehow you know time really doesn't matter you're kind of beyond time when you walk to the south pole

00:06:20.260 and that's not only when i walk to the south pole it's also you know sometimes when i do a little bit

00:06:24.720 outdoors here in norway and you can i think you can do it anywhere in the world that you know for a few

00:06:30.840 minutes hours or maybe some days you escape time which is a beautiful beautiful feeling

00:06:36.540 so related to prolonging the sense that our life is longer related that is this idea that it can

00:06:43.140 walking can deepen memories and you mentioned a little bit of what why you think that is when you

00:06:47.960 walk you smell things you see things you hear things that you otherwise wouldn't smell hear or see

00:06:53.600 when you're driving in a car exactly you have this you know strange bond between slowness and memory and

00:07:00.360 between speed and forgetting and i think you know that's that's you know just when you walk in this

00:07:07.880 walk in the street i have a high pace and i have forgotten something then i slow down to try to

00:07:14.400 remember what i have forgotten or you're kind of wondering you know if you're going to walk to the

00:07:19.480 right or the left or straight ahead then you also slow down to kind of focus so you know the higher the

00:07:26.240 speed somehow the less intelligent you are in the present moment and also you know you're forgetting

00:07:32.680 faster and also think it comes down to feelings like um when i try to walk away from a problem or

00:07:39.320 forget the problem i speed up to try to forget but when i walk slowly somehow i can digest those

00:07:47.760 feelings and you know go through those feelings you know i've had that same experience it's hard for me

00:07:52.380 to remember car rides with my kids but i can remember walks that i took with them in my neighborhood or on

00:07:56.600 some hiking trail quite vividly and what we've been talking about really reminds me of research that

00:08:02.160 says when you do novel things time slows down because your brain pays more attention and takes

00:08:08.160 more footage of what's going on around you and that makes the memory seem longer because there's more

00:08:12.700 footage to unspool later so that would be the case when you take a walk you're experiencing more

00:08:17.800 stimuli that you wouldn't if you're in the seat of your same old car just wasn't through the landscape

00:08:21.880 yeah exactly and i think that's you know that's also about you know what we just talked about also

00:08:26.540 you know to to make your life feel longer because of course if you always have a high speed always doing

00:08:33.500 the same things driving looking onto a screens different screens on the pc or your telephone

00:08:38.980 you're into social media checking the news all the time then it will feel like life is short and you

00:08:45.700 know i'm 56 years old so i tend to go to these different birthdays people turning 60 or 80 or

00:08:51.640 90 years old and at least one will do a speech and talk about life being short and all these days

00:08:58.580 weeks and years and they didn't really understand that was life and that's i think it's a bit sad

00:09:04.700 and it's you know it's about missing this huge opportunity to live a rich life and then again as i said

00:09:12.160 if you sometimes walk do different things slow down you know live a little bit more in the present

00:09:18.600 not thinking too much because when you're thinking you're thinking about the past or the future

00:09:22.720 then life feels long and you know life is long so in our last conversation about your book silence you

00:09:29.220 talked about this idea of injecting or putting in voluntary hardship into our lives so let's do a

00:09:36.340 refresher why do you think it's important that we do that and then the follow-up question that is how can

00:09:40.720 walking do that you know i'm talking as a norwegian when i say you know talk about the importance of

00:09:49.380 making life more difficult than necessary obviously if i had been born in poverty in sudan it would have

00:09:56.200 been differently then life is already very difficult but you know if you're born in norway or many places

00:10:02.380 in the states um you really don't have to do anything in life in the sense that you know you

00:10:09.960 hardly even have to get off the bed in in in the morning and the mountaineer george mallory you know

00:10:16.600 who tried to climb mount everest in the 1920s he famously replied when he was asked why do you want to

00:10:22.580 climb everest if he famously replied because it's there and i think that's a very good answer because i think

00:10:29.160 you know what he had in mind was that you really don't need to climb everest you don't really need

00:10:35.200 to do anything in life you can always choose the easiest option and i quite often you know you have

00:10:41.180 to choose between two things that go for easiest but that's quite often a mistake because then you

00:10:47.240 also live like an unfree human being because your life is so predestined that you always do the easiest

00:10:52.900 part and if you're going to live a free life you need to possess time and you need to choose

00:10:59.000 the most difficult options in life and when i look on my life i think you know it's almost all the

00:11:05.720 great fun all the excitement i have been doing all great experiences in life uh they have been due to

00:11:11.940 me choosing the most difficult to the easiest option right so it's going back that idea of memory and

00:11:18.480 prolonging your sense of life doing hard things can can add to that exactly because you know you can sit

00:11:26.240 all day uh looking onto your phone but you won't experience anything you know you're not going to

00:11:32.980 fulfill any of your potentials if you do the opposite you don't make life a little bit more

00:11:38.520 difficult to get up to do a walk and of course the walk is a little bit more difficult usually than

00:11:45.300 to drive and or sit down but it's so much more enriching it's not you know do a little walk it's not

00:11:52.760 life-changing but you know always there's always something which is happening there's always

00:11:57.800 something that is kind of adding to your life and you know so somehow i think you know also try to tell

00:12:05.780 my kids if you have to choose between something which is you know really easy and something which

00:12:10.600 is more difficult you should almost always try to choose the most difficult option but you know it's a

00:12:17.820 struggle so you know quite often you know i don't do it myself but you know it's i think it's important

00:12:23.480 to keep in mind and you mentioned that idea when you choose the easy way when we do that when we

00:12:28.760 choose convenience we think we're actually we're being masters of our fate but you make this case and

00:12:34.320 other philosophers have also made this case that when you choose convenience or ease you actually are

00:12:39.340 becoming kind of a slave unintentionally yeah i think you know that's that's a very you know valid point

00:12:45.400 you know like many philosophers have been writing about this and somehow you know you need to choose

00:12:51.440 if you're going to lead your own life or if you're going to be led by others and i think you know if you

00:12:58.840 are you know walking for instance making your own choices sometimes you know make life more difficult

00:13:05.940 than necessary you know walk a few kilometers extra getting up early in the morning then somehow you know

00:13:12.920 you lead your own life you're in charge of your own life and that's when you know life will feel great

00:13:19.040 and i think the opposite you know to choose this easiest option is very much about you know in the

00:13:24.660 long run for instance that you get you know i'm not anti-technology or anti-capitalism but you know

00:13:31.240 but if you kind of get absolutely addicted to different apps on a mobile phone you know you might quite

00:13:37.840 easily you know feel restless sad lonely and eventually you know many people came to be

00:13:44.920 depressed from that kind of living so you know short term that's the most tempting but a little

00:13:50.200 bit longer term it's a big mistake i think you talked about you mentioned wally the movie wally

00:13:55.740 yeah there's an example of that so you like in the movie the humans have to leave earth because it got

00:14:01.460 too polluted but then they just become sort of this dependent on this technology where they just sit

00:14:05.980 around in these chairs and it got to the point where like they couldn't walk anymore they couldn't

00:14:10.000 do anything like they became slaves to the technology yeah exactly and you know it's the reason i mentioned

00:14:16.460 this movie wall is you know one reason was because i saw it with my kids and it made an impression because

00:14:23.160 you know wally is 800 years into into the future but you know a little bit of what happens in the movie

00:14:31.440 is happening with us today that now we walk less and less and i think that's a mistake because we are

00:14:37.700 walking species and it's like homo sapiens has always been walking in the sense that it was not we

00:14:45.540 homo sapiens who invented the possibility to walk on two legs it was the other way around it was a possibility

00:14:51.560 to walk on two legs that invented human beings and we have always you know been exploring by walking by doing

00:14:59.940 something physical by experiencing that's the basis of all our knowledge and you know development

00:15:05.960 over you know of our brains but today we are the first generation who starts to sit more and more

00:15:12.920 move less and less and eventually like in wall e we hardly walk at all the way we move as i said is

00:15:20.380 by motorized vehicles and then it's a question you know it's will we still be homo sapiens if we

00:15:28.140 don't walk anymore and it's yeah the statistics are pretty dismal you highlight this fact that it

00:15:33.720 was very stark you compared the activity the physical activity of children who are going to school to

00:15:40.120 physical activity of people in prison and people in prison on average get more physical activity than

00:15:47.220 kids at school yeah you know that was one of the things that really surprised me when i did research to

00:15:53.100 my book i thought you know i asked myself you know what people in society spend the less less time

00:15:59.060 doing outdoors and i thought you know that would be people in prisons and it was hard to find statistics

00:16:04.620 but in england you know i found it and it appeared that one quarter of all kids in not at least

00:16:12.100 about 40 percent of all kids in england they spend less than one over doing outdoors a day and actually

00:16:18.980 one quarter of kids in england they don't do any outdoors at all during the average day so you know

00:16:25.580 it was a bit sad to see that it's kids that spend you know doing the less time outside their homes

00:16:32.900 in society and you know that's a very tough start on their lives and you know it's a very unfortunate

00:16:38.840 start because you know they're not going to be qualified for life to have a great life later

00:16:44.460 so you're a philosopher besides being an adventurer and you like to walk and you are part of a line

00:16:51.900 of philosophers who also were walkers so who are some of these other famous philosopher walkers that

00:16:57.800 you've encountered in your your reading you know it's surprisingly many philosophers who kind of kept

00:17:03.400 on walking of course socrates kirkegaard there were street philosophers to just walk the streets in

00:17:09.960 athens or copenhagen to talk to people and see what was happening around them and and and of course

00:17:17.920 nietzsche fabius said he could not you know think any great ideas without you know being walking and

00:17:24.920 it's also even reflected in our language in the english language just like in the norwegian language that

00:17:30.820 like we say you move and you're being moved and motion emotion and if you go to

00:17:39.640 silicon valley today you'll see you know people walk a lot they have meetings and they're walking

00:17:44.480 and one of the reasons they're inspired by steve jobs of course because he was a keen walker and he

00:17:50.160 had this and he you know he told his kids no way you're going to use too much products from apple

00:17:55.680 you need to move around you need to live a healthy life and of course the possibility for becoming a new

00:18:01.880 brett steve jobs by walking is not great but you know it helps a little bit i mean what do you think

00:18:08.100 the connection is between thinking and walking like why do you think all those philosophers like

00:18:13.260 even aristotle he was a walker like his followers were called peripatetics it's like you know walking

00:18:18.620 philosophers like what do you think is going on there the connection between walking and analytic

00:18:24.420 thinking you know i think all walkers throughout you know history they have have had the same experience

00:18:30.000 in the sense that as soon as they get up on two legs and start to walk their heads clear up they're thinking

00:18:38.200 more clearly ideas are coming to them is super good for their creativity and fortunately scientists have been

00:18:47.000 started to study this phenomenon and in 2014 at stanford university in u.s they tested people you know in terms of

00:18:56.160 creativity like giving them things to do while sitting down i think giving them things to do

00:19:01.160 after they have been walking for 50 minutes and creativity they increased 60 percent by only walking

00:19:09.280 for 50 minutes and of course it doesn't last for days but they last for a few hours and then you need

00:19:14.420 to do another walk so like darwin when he was you know working really hard he had this charles darwin

00:19:22.080 he had this walking path so you know whenever he kind of didn't manage to think any further didn't

00:19:28.060 manage to write he got up he walked his walking path 10 50 minutes came back to his office and then

00:19:34.660 you know his head was working again and he could do his work so i guess the takeaway there is if you

00:19:40.320 have a big problem a hard problem you're trying to solve maybe instead of thinking harder about it

00:19:46.200 just go outside and take a walk yeah and you know that's sometimes the beauty of walking that you know

00:19:51.340 you don't even have to think about that problem and that's also another you know one of the big

00:19:57.000 questions in the history of philosophy can you come up to answers to questions you haven't asked 0.95

00:20:02.180 yourself and socrates was battling with this question he felt was a stupid question but he didn't

00:20:08.440 manage to come up with a good answer because socrates idea was that we're thinking with our head of 0.82

00:20:14.120 our brain only but then you know as all walkers have experienced that you're not only thinking with

00:20:20.260 your head you're also thinking with your with your hope you think with the whole body also thinking

00:20:25.060 with you with your feet and that's the reason why you don't have to be aware of what's going on in

00:20:30.960 your mind but you come back from a walk and suddenly sit you know with two solutions two problems you

00:20:37.080 didn't even know you had diogenes the famous cynic philosopher he said it is solved by walking

00:20:43.380 solvitor ambulando exactly beautiful quote it is i got it hanging up on my wall in my bedroom

00:20:49.800 so another aspect of walking that you hit on in the book is getting lost and we live in a world where

00:20:57.540 it's almost impossible to get lost now thanks to gps like there's always that blue dot on google maps

00:21:03.740 that knows exactly where you're at what happens when we can no longer get lost what do you think

00:21:09.680 happens when we can no longer get lost anymore you know i see the great advantages with google maps

00:21:15.220 but you know i also really dislike it so i've taken it off my phone and the same reasons i think you

00:21:22.960 know one reason is because i saw this study that actually we people we have become less intelligent

00:21:31.180 the last 10 years thanks to you know all these apps because we don't you know we don't do maths

00:21:37.480 anymore you know you know and we don't do navigation anymore etc etc etc so that's you know slowly makes

00:21:44.940 us dumber and so that's one side of it but also just not being able to get lost anymore i think that's

00:21:54.580 you know it's that's that's that's uh i don't think it's good for anything and i remember when i was a kid 0.59

00:22:01.480 i was hiking in the forests and i got lost all the time and of course you know it's a great experience

00:22:07.320 not to know where you are you get a little bit worried and you start to wonder and you really

00:22:13.860 had to think you had to be creative it's healthy for you and talking about it i remember when i was

00:22:20.340 maybe seven years old and my brother gunnar was 10 years old and we were out hiking in the forest

00:22:26.260 close to where we were living in oslo and we got a bit worried because we lost our way

00:22:31.340 and we tried you know tried to find our way back home and then suddenly my brother said with a big

00:22:38.320 smile oh i got lost here before so now i know where we are now i think that's a very profound idea

00:22:46.320 that if you really want to know where you are in life you have to get lost exactly and i think now

00:22:52.000 that's also like you know it's it's really a great experience to kind of start on zero again

00:22:57.760 and take it from there so i think that you know that's a dimension in the daily life

00:23:02.820 that we're losing because we have google maps if you're wondering about something we don't really

00:23:09.120 need the knowledge or need to think too much because we can with believe we can find the answer in a

00:23:14.920 second by googling it and that's very practical but you know it makes our life slightly more poor

00:23:22.580 do you purposely try to get lost when you take walks sometimes yes absolutely i walk in the

00:23:28.440 mountains and the forest but also in the big cities when i get to a new city i like to walk the city i

00:23:34.200 like to see the city in slow motion i like to see the city from a different angle than other people

00:23:41.360 like two friends myself we walked through all of la a few years ago from eastern la don't see the

00:23:48.200 chavez avenue into sunset boulevard all the way to the ocean and what's interesting was that

00:23:54.400 everybody who travels in la a tourist and angelinos they will sit in a car they will see their city

00:24:02.900 through the windows and it's like you know it's like seeing the city you know on the screen on the video

00:24:09.820 on the tv but when we walked and we saw the same stuff same matters but you know we saw it over a longer

00:24:17.540 time we saw the city in a totally new way and sometimes you know we got lost other times not

00:24:24.900 but that's you know that's the way to see la especially because you know nobody else is walking

00:24:29.940 it's you know the only most the only people who walked in la were drug addicts or or or prostitutes 0.78

00:24:36.560 or insane people and that also gave it an extra interesting dimension well you said you got stopped

00:24:43.160 by the police a few times wanted to know what you were doing they were like why are you walking

00:24:47.140 you weirdo yeah you know i actually read about you know the police being a bit upset about people

00:24:54.460 walking through particular areas in la and i thought you know it was kind of a joke but way east in la

00:25:01.060 we were actually stopped by the police and they were suspicious because we were walking so it had to be

00:25:07.180 something wrong something strange you know but as soon as you know the police understood there were three

00:25:13.380 norwegians exploring their city they asked us if you want to you know take photos together with them

00:25:19.000 so you talk about in the book the idea that walking can serve as a way to transition from you know in

00:25:26.960 our day you know going from work to home or even it can on a larger scale might even help us transition

00:25:33.160 from different parts of the year how does that look in your life how does walking serve as a as a

00:25:38.500 transition point today it does it by you know i live in a city and i i work in a city so i spend time

00:25:47.400 walking for instance back and forth to my office it takes about 30 35 minutes each way and just by

00:25:54.260 walking i see you know sometimes you know quite a lot of the same houses quite a lot of the same people

00:26:02.060 the same streets every day but i could tell by you know the faces i see that they're changing

00:26:10.160 not a lot a little bit every day i can see you know people who are happy consider unhappy i can see you

00:26:17.260 know you know how they feel if they're in a rush and it's nothing kind of fantastic which is happening

00:26:24.340 when you're walking to the walking to your office but it's all these small details it tells a big deal

00:26:30.540 about daily life it tells a big deal about you know the people you're actually living in the same

00:26:35.780 city with and also you know transforms you from like for me having three kids at home it's you know

00:26:43.060 it's so much noise so many things to do and instead of rushing to the office i walk and then i you know

00:26:50.060 get into a different mood and i get ready for a new life every morning to get to my office and if i've

00:26:56.880 been driving i would have saved some time of course on my watch but i would have brought the daily life

00:27:04.060 from my home into my office which you know would you know make me much less effective at at the

00:27:11.980 office i think you know you actually need a little bit of time you need to move slowly to get into a

00:27:18.680 different rhythm and not different mood before you get to the office if it's possible for you but i think

00:27:23.600 you know again people tell me all the time i'm so busy i don't have time blah blah blah but you know

00:27:30.460 reality is an average norwegian today would spend around four hours doing social media every day

00:27:38.820 and we live in this country probably like in the states around 82 83 years time and that again means

00:27:46.780 that we spend 13 years of our lives day and night doing social media so when people tell me they're

00:27:55.240 too busy they don't have time for walking they don't have time for that they don't have time for silence

00:28:01.140 i think they are underestimating themselves so you mentioned when you walk you see people you can see

00:28:08.980 they're happy if they're rushed and you can tell a lot not just by the way someone's face looks about

00:28:15.860 what they're what they are what they're going through in life but also just by the way someone

00:28:19.900 walks in their life you can tell a lot about a person how they walk yeah i think that's you know

00:28:26.800 that's i've found that very interesting because of course when you walked on the street you see their

00:28:32.860 faces on a few for a few seconds and that you know can tell a little bit but to me it's too brief too

00:28:39.460 short but when you look at people how they walk you can you know you can watch them for 10 seconds

00:28:45.920 half a minute even several minutes if you walk the same direction and that again you know tell you a

00:28:52.740 lot about what the people are you know what kind of lives they're living like a guy the street where i

00:28:59.020 live he's a army officer and you know the army officer he walks in a particular way kind of this

00:29:06.060 confident kind of self full of self-confidence he walks up the street i mean i would get into the

00:29:13.320 city i see this you know hipsters that have a different kind of gate and then again you see

00:29:19.120 some beggars and you know their daily lives somehow inscribed into the bodies and also inscribed into the

00:29:27.120 way they actually they've been walking like a beggar somehow in the life of a beggar that kind of you 0.99

00:29:33.420 know inscribed in their gates you can you know they don't get away from it and so this you know

00:29:39.740 the way people walk is very much kind of based upon you know their lives the social status and of course

00:29:47.860 it's it's with genes so when i look at my daughters when they were one or two years old they learn how to 0.97

00:29:52.900 walk you know they kind of they still walk the same way no i've noticed that when i when i read that

00:29:58.940 section i started thinking about how i recognize people and one way like if you're in a crowded

00:30:04.400 area where it's hard to see faces like at a park for example and i'm watching my kids or i'm trying

00:30:08.800 to find my kids instead of looking at faces i look at the whole body of these kids to see how they're

00:30:14.560 moving i can find i can spot my kid by the way they move their body yeah exactly and i think you know

00:30:20.280 it could spot the kids but also i think it's kind of you know interesting when you watch people

00:30:24.840 walk you know to guess you know what are you thinking what's going on in your mind and you

00:30:31.060 know it's also i read this report that the police though of course they have depend on fingerprints in

00:30:36.640 their investigation work for for decades but now they're starting to analyze how people work and i

00:30:43.280 think now walk and i think you know eventually that would be at least or even maybe even more accurate

00:30:49.520 and fingerprints to identify people and talking about this idea of how walking or the way we walk

00:30:56.380 changes the way depending on how we feel you can always tell someone who's really tired from just

00:31:03.220 life right so it can be a beggar or it could be just someone who's really stressed out at work

00:31:07.980 but you said there's you notice that there's a difference between the tiredness of someone who's

00:31:13.360 just world weary and the tiredness of someone who just got back from a an invigorating hike that

00:31:20.140 there's a difference between those type of gates it's a huge difference and you know when i walk in

00:31:26.120 the streets and see people hard down who are tired you know it's a kind of a sadness quite often when

00:31:33.080 you see them their life is tough but then when you you know when you go for instance on a hike in the

00:31:38.960 forest it's it's it's interesting to see maybe we could even see the same people all the people when

00:31:43.940 they start on off on their hikes they also look a bit quite often a bit tired a bit restless not that

00:31:50.140 happy but i think almost everybody i see returning from a hike they look happy they are smiling and i think

00:32:00.460 that's just you know as i said that you know you move and you are being moved and hippocrates the father

00:32:07.020 of the modern medicine for more than two thousand years ago of course he said that walking is the

00:32:12.000 best medicine but they also said that if you're in a bad mood go for a walk and if you're still in

00:32:18.680 bad mood go for another walk and that's you know that holds up i think for for everybody at least

00:32:24.820 everybody i know about it is solved by walking it's solved by walking exactly it's solved by walking

00:32:30.380 you you talk about the story of adam and eve and that the story of adam and eve is a story about

00:32:36.240 walking what can adam and eve teaches about walking and being human quite a lot i think i remember

00:32:42.540 when i went to children's school i learned about adam and eve how adam was tempted by eve and how they

00:32:49.440 were chased out of paradise as a dramatic story but today i look at at it you know very differently i

00:32:56.400 think you know everyday life in paradise you know they lasted you know one single very important thing

00:33:03.280 and that's excitement you know it was they didn't have any excitement at all life was very very

00:33:09.840 boring so of course it was tempting to you know try an apple from the tree of wisdom as adam did so i

00:33:18.420 think you know they were fully aware of what they were doing and i don't think they were chased out of

00:33:23.580 paradise i think they actually walked out of paradise voluntarily because they were fed up

00:33:29.740 in that way of course even adam became the world's first wanderers so the first explorers by leaving

00:33:37.800 paradise and as i said earlier on making their lives much more difficult than it had to be and in that

00:33:46.880 sense i think adam and eve you know they're kind of role models because i think you know i'm struggling

00:33:52.140 with it and i think most people i know you know they're struggling with it that you know life quite often

00:33:58.200 can be very exciting and you need to find excitement in your life and then you actually

00:34:05.680 have sometimes to leave what you're doing walk away and do something differently right like bilbo baggins

00:34:14.480 the hobbit yeah he had to take a walk he had to walk out of the shire yeah to go on that and make

00:34:19.120 life a little bit harder for himself in this book you talk about you mentioned this guy i'm going to

00:34:24.680 probably not get his name right because i think it's norwegian arne nice nice yeah you know which

00:34:30.820 is improving all right it has improved since last time well he has this idea this sort of he created

00:34:36.800 a formula for happiness yeah i think you know arne ness was a leading norwegian philosopher and he made

00:34:45.120 this formula for happiness and you know it's like happiness equals like you know a big part of glow

00:34:52.240 and the glow he thought about fervor or joy but then you also need in life you need pain you need a

00:34:59.880 little bit of bodily pain and you need mental pain so you know it's a combination between glow that can

00:35:06.760 be multiplied by itself or more on one side and then pain on the other side and i think that's something

00:35:13.060 you know which is very easy to forget in daily life that you don't think that you should only have

00:35:18.420 pleasures you should only have happiness you know and talk to kids but also grown-ups i said that you

00:35:24.000 know all i want to be is to be happy and then you know and forget that it's a meaning with pain and

00:35:33.680 it's not possible only to be happy so you know pain is was given to us as human beings as a very

00:35:41.140 important thing and also important you know it's all the way you can actually feel happiness is that

00:35:46.440 somehow you relate to to pain in life so this goes back to your idea of you know putting struggle into

00:35:52.420 our lives and you know another philosopher peter wessel zopf he wrote a book on the tragic and he said

00:35:58.440 that you know when you take shortcuts in life you rob yourself of that happiness or that or just

00:36:05.540 you rob yourself of being of an opportunity to be human when you take a shortcut i think so because you

00:36:10.860 know it's as i said early on it's possible to make life at least for most norwegians and most americans

00:36:17.100 it's possible to make life super simple super easy throughout almost every day but that as you know

00:36:25.440 suffer says this other norwegian philosopher says then you're not living a life as a human being

00:36:31.460 you're living a very dull life you're living a very unfree life because it's it is always what you're

00:36:37.740 going to choose because you're only going to choose the the easiest option and you know and the free

00:36:43.400 man he possesses time and he possesses choices and he is key to fulfill his own potentials and i think

00:36:54.080 that's super important because i think you know in one way all this talk about happiness i think you

00:36:59.180 know happiness is a bit overrated in the sense that people like to have happiness from minute to minute

00:37:04.200 and that's not possible it's it's it's it's uh very naive and yeah i think you know it's i think i

00:37:12.300 don't enjoy freezing i don't enjoy pain but it's an important part of life and a few weeks ago i had

00:37:19.700 this problem with my appendix actually it's ruptured it was super painful i had to go through surgery i was

00:37:26.320 in the hospital and i was very down and got off to the hospital and after a few days i started to feel

00:37:34.840 good again i started to feel healthy again and that's a great feeling that you kind of you know

00:37:40.440 this disease the weakness eventually leave your body and then you feel strong again and you know

00:37:46.980 and i think that's one of the best feelings ever and if it hadn't been for the problems with my

00:37:52.180 appendix you know i wouldn't have had that problem and of course to say with freezing it could be

00:37:58.760 terrible but then again when eventually you get warm again that's the best feeling and walking is a way

00:38:06.740 you can add that you know a little bit of hardship into your life on a regular basis i think it's i think

00:38:12.620 it's important actually to it's you know to walk from a to b because it's practical it's good but

00:38:18.340 sometimes you know i advise people to the extent i can advise anyone to you know try to do some really

00:38:27.080 long walks every now and then go on for hours get really tired wear yourself down and not because it's

00:38:35.020 you know gives of health benefits but because it's it's a beautiful feeling and eventually at least

00:38:41.060 that's my experience when you get tired you kind of stop thinking you're just being you're just

00:38:46.760 experiencing the whole situation and then again when you eventually make it back home you can relax

00:38:54.320 it's a tremendous feeling you have a maybe have a shower you have something good to eat and that

00:39:01.640 food of course has never tasted better than it does after you have actually been on a long walk

00:39:07.300 all right so uh you can walk in the city do it as frequently as you can you recommend also taking a

00:39:12.780 you know a long a really long walk every now and then any other walks you recommend or that you've

00:39:19.040 done like walking at night or walking in bad weather like just walk whenever yeah i think you know it's

00:39:25.240 quite it's it's it's it's let my kids to say they say no we don't want to walk because it's raining

00:39:31.820 and you know that again is a huge misunderstanding and because you know i think you know quite often

00:39:40.520 things looks more interesting and more beautiful when it rains and also maybe you get a little bit

00:39:47.480 wet but when eventually get into house again you get a beautiful feeling of drying up and getting the

00:39:54.860 heat back so i try to walk totally independent of the weather and in a few weeks i plan to walk with

00:40:03.360 two friends just walk broadway in new york from up north down to downtown manhattan just walk it at

00:40:12.020 night time it's it's nothing big it's free it doesn't cost any money i'm just doing it to see the city

00:40:20.460 in the dark see what's happening in the dark throughout the whole night and so it's not an expedition it's

00:40:26.180 just about you know about learning about other people and of course you know learning about myself

00:40:32.500 one of the interesting arguments you make in the book is that the slowness of walking can actually

00:40:37.780 be counter-cultural absolutely i think you know also because so much in our society is about speed

00:40:45.380 you have to hurry up all the time everybody says they're short on time they have to go from a to b

00:40:51.600 in in high speed they have to have to be on the phone all the time they have to check the news three

00:40:57.520 times every hour although nothing has happened you have this super restless attitude throughout the

00:41:02.940 whole society and of course the government is very much about speed they want you to speed up because

00:41:07.480 you're going to create a gross national product businesses would like you to speed up because they

00:41:12.320 would like you not to consume so either you should hurry up from a to b or you should sit down and

00:41:17.320 consume and the educational system is also very much about speed because you're going to go through

00:41:22.140 school as quick as possible to to become a good taxpayer and all this is good but you know has good

00:41:30.200 sides but this also has you know it's also kind of a little bit you know negative to our daily lives so

00:41:36.520 in that sense i think to walk today has become one of the most radical things you can do yeah it's it's a

00:41:43.820 it can make you free right so you sort of it's an act of rebellion in a lot of ways yes exactly can

00:41:49.200 make you free can also be you know it's even a little bit anarchistic in the sense that if you take

00:41:54.740 the metro or drive a car take a plane whatever someone else is deciding your speed deciding where

00:42:01.220 you can stop deciding what you can see what you can do etc but if you walk you do it in home space you

00:42:07.940 can stop and every like you can you know you can look around you so in that sense it's not a huge

00:42:14.320 anarchistic thing of course but there's a tiny anarchistic movement to be walking well arlen where

00:42:20.940 can people go to learn more about the book in your work i think you know it's when i wrote my book on

00:42:25.920 walking i tried to make it really short uh i spent a year and a half to write those few words because

00:42:33.460 my idea was that you know people could spend one evening maybe two reading my book and if they want

00:42:40.860 to learn more they shouldn't necessarily google me or walking but they should go out walking

00:42:47.500 themselves and maybe find their own self poles i love it arlen kage thanks so much time it's been a

00:42:53.720 pleasure thank you my guest is arlen kage he is the author of the book walking it's available on amazon.com

00:42:59.540 also check out our show notes at aom.is walking where you can find links to resources where you

00:43:04.300 delve deeper into this topic

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The Art of Manliness - November 13, 2019

#560： The Magic of Walking

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