More Ideas When You Walk: A Review of Two Books — Epoche A2
Two books about a quiet head This winter, two books about feeling calmer came home with me from the town library in Ljubljana. The first is In Praise of Walking by Shane O'Mara, a brain scientist in Dublin. The best page of the book is not an opinion but an experiment he describes. People had to think of new uses for everyday objects — first sitting, then walking. Walking, they produced clearly more ideas. And one detail matters most: the effect also came on a walking machine in a bare room, facing a wall. So the walking itself helps the thinking; the trees and the view are extra. The second is Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a book about meditation. Its chapters are two or three pages long, which is friendly. But the method wants a quiet seat every day, on the good days and the bad ones, and it promises no quick result. The book says this honestly. One test, then. After the first book, the walk to work along the river replaced the tram: twenty-five minutes, my phone in the bag. Hard questions come along and often get smaller by the office door. The second book waits by the bed. Perhaps its winter will come — but this review was thought up on foot.