The Walking Instinct Friday July 29, 2011
They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: “Is this true?” They ask: “Is this what others think is true?” Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egoists. You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation—anchored to nothing. That’s the emptiness I couldn’t understand in people. That’s what stopped me whenever I faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility.
The independent man kills them—because they don’t exist within him and that’s the only form of existence they know
- Ayn Rand, The Nature of the Second-Hander
I spend much of my life thinking, analysing, ruminating and worrying. What does he/she think, have I got enough money (no), and I must get to bed early for a nine o’clock start tomorrow. It’s petty stuff. It’s always a struggle. And it never stops.
Society does this to me, not the mountains. Ayn Rand referred to the notion of the ‘second hander’ which I think has many layers and ramifications, one of which is social criticism in terms of the human spirit: we are supposed to obey rather than think, reproduce rather than create, accept rather than question, and be as pawns in a social system rather than the rook, knight, or queen. The second hander is the person that fits into all of this, who then acts to curtail and block those who do not.
Some years ago I attended a university conference in Edinburgh called Understanding Creativity. There were teachers, youth workers, artists and academics attending. I wrote a report for my employer – Salford University – providing a delineation and summary of what transpired. The most fundamentally recurring idea was that creativity is inherently rebellious and subversive. By definition it occurs in a surrounding context which is not creative, and the relationship is problematic. The education system mostly does not encourage creativity; the curriculum doesn’t allow it, performance targets block its pursuit, it’s barely recognised and improperly understood. It’s the second handers who are like this and if you have a creative ie rebellious spirit – you will end up battling with them. The contest is for your spirit, and for the rebellious creative the terms are non negotiable.
Walking, I suggest, affirms the spirit and antidotes second hand society. We do what we want. Walk where we want. Sleep where we want. Decide what we want. All of this, affirming our power to do so which society, and second handers, block and curtail. We pass through; we are not stuck. The views change and change again, they are not the buildings, streets and domestic rooms which we normally inhabit, like rats in a cage.
So its about freedom. And self determination. And autonomy. And, perhaps, some hint of a harmony with the universe which should be a natural condition, but which is not. The opposite is a kind of pavement deadening; a hypnotic condition where our spirit sleeps and our powers are unused: we are second hand, turned out and guided along the conveyor belt streets of society.
You see, Wally, the trouble with always being active and doing things is that it’s quite possible to do all sorts of things and at the same time be completely dead inside. I mean, you’re doing all these things, but are you doing them because you really feel an impulse to do them, or are you doing them mechanically, as we were saying before? Because I do believe that if you’re just living mechanically, then you have to change your life. I mean, you know, when you’re young, you go out on dates all the time, you go dance or something, you’re floating free, and then one day you find yourself in a relationship, and suddenly everything freezes. And this can be true in your work as well. And I mean, as long as you’re really alive inside, then of course there’s no problem. I mean, you know, if you’re living with someone in one little room, and there’s a life going on between you and the person you’re living with, well then, you know, a whole adventure can be going on right in that room. But there’s always that danger that things can go dead. And then I think you really do have to kind of become a hobo or something, you know, like Kerouac, and go out on the road
- My Dinner With André, 1981, directed by Louis Malle
Walking is a primitive activity, and it antidotes some of the imbalance our society rests on. We’ve been doing it since childhood, and it’s programmed into us genetically. Mothers and fathers don’t teach their toddlers to walk. They crawl around a little delightedly then one day stand, totter, take a few steps, fall, laugh, cry when they bang their head, then do it all again until they master it. Freud spoke about the stages of biological function and how it must, necessarily, have a psychological correlation. It feels natural to poo and pee all over the carpet because that’s what the body needs to do. But then Mum’s voice is louder and her face looks a bit threatening, and I need mum to be nice to me so I stop doing it. Then come the nappy wars. According to Freud this is the first instance where we get some control over the environment – Mum and our own bodies – through the exercise of will.
I remember some transitions. For example, the moment when I was finally allowed to take my bath by myself. It felt odd. Principally, because I was alone. Not odd because it was difficult – I’d persuaded Mum I could manage the tricky flannel manoeuvres, that I was old enough to understand all the little crevices needed a wash and I would do behind my ears even though I hated it when she did it – but odd because it was me doing it, not Mum, or Dad, with his big fingers rammed painfully into my small ears; bless him. It would be nice to have a joke about such things but he’s no longer here. Prior to my solitary ablutions (and actually the flannel manoeuvres were a little tricky) I used to bath, or rather get bathed, with my brother. Ha, bruv. That’s pretty funny. We had toy boats, and after seeing Kermit the Frog singing about loving his rubber ducky, I tried that too – but it wasn’t the same. Cute as it was seeing Kermit, I didn’t get the same bath-time pleasure. I was growing up. I’m not sure it’s finished yet.
We had soap-on-a-rope Christmas presents, bath cubes, and fights about who got the top end or the tap end. I pulled rank with my superior age, and poor old bruv always had to endure the cold taps digging into his back. I don’t remember the details but I do know who got bathed first – bruv or me – was also a matter of insistent debate.
As regards walking, my Dad liked to walk and sometimes we went on what was, in retrospect, lovely little rambles characteristic of a bygone era. How many parents today go for Sunday walks with their children? I remember doing it with a sister or two and bruv, and with bruv alone – just the three of us, two boys and their Dad. We went to a woodland area called Canada Heights, accessed by walking across agricultural Kent fields. Most notable was what we called the ‘boing tree’ when Dad pulled down a springy tree branch into our eager grip which then launched us into the air, over a hillside. Health and Safety buffoons – go away. It was fun.
My father also liked to walk along the Kent coastline when he’d had enough of lying in the sun. We went on modest and rather sweet holidays to St Mary’s Bay near Dymchurch and Camber Sands, staying in holiday park chalets. From today’s standards it would look very sad and some would probably find it embarrassing but it was cheap (nothing wrong with that), and fun (what we wanted). As a child it was great and the drive, only an hour or so, seemed to go on forever until the final excitement…yes…I can smell it…look that must be the horizon…finally the sea. Just going to the sea was incredibly exciting, evocative of all the innocent traditional pleasures: sandcastles, ice cream, and a little pocket money to buy a few comics.
Dad tried to encourage and persuade us and we did, actually, enjoy the walks, one from St Mary’s Bay to Dymchurch, but not as much as he did: we also liked lying in the sun and playing in the sea. He got bored; I now understand that.
The first proper hill walking I ever did was a rain soaked few days in the Lake District, after a coach trip up from Brighton. I had an appalling metal frame rucksack more like a torture device than a sensible hiking design, and a cheap and ineffective plastic smock. Yellow, it was. And my boots were black Doctor Martens, which were worse than shoes in regard to their slippery soles. I remember negotiating a river rock crossing in those, and how precarious it was. I stayed in two or three youth hostels, walking the lowland areas around Grasmere. In truth – I didn’t really enjoy it. It was undeniably grim, raining all the time. But when my sister asked me about it I said “yes, but I’m glad I did it”.
Mountain walking adds another dimension to life, a philosophical and psychological layer corresponding to its high level geography. Sufi philosopher Henry Corbin suggested
A presence lacking a vertical dimension is reduced to seeking the meaning of history by arbitrarily imposing the terms of reference, powerless to grasp forms in the upward direction.
The ‘upward direction’ of mountain walking is both literal and metaphoric: that such places exist, and they evoke a psychological response.
I have no earlier recollection of my first or early walking moments. Presumably, some people do. I wonder if I felt anything like the joy I feel about walking as an adult; similar perhaps to the joy of a childhood bicycle which I do remember. Suddenly, you are free. You can go places, do things, engage with the world, and have a great deal of fun. More so, than being stuck on a sofa listening to Mum talking about babies with one of her friends smelling, perhaps, the comforting fragrance of her home baking.
It would make an interesting psychological study to monitor and document the first walking moments of toddlers: how long it takes, how much they enjoy it or not (with the indicator of their beaming smile, laughter etc) and then perhaps speculate on this transition as Freud did with poo and pee.
Although I’m not sure this would be necessary. The simple fact of this biogenetic programming testifies to its psychological significance. Unlike poo and pee, learning to stand and then walk is a win-win situation. There’s no comfort or discomfort, no coercion or resistance, no external manipulation or control. Perhaps it gives feelings of mastery and power: wow, check this everyone, look at me, ooh baby, looking good. Or maybe not: because there’s no narcissism in this transition, any proving to others, which rest on a sophisticated process of comparison and self awareness. No, of course; toddlers learn to walk by learning they can, not by thinking about it but by discovering the innate capacity of their bodies and it’s exclusively for themselves, not to please or impress anyone. Since it’s not an intellectual process, and it’s not innate until sufficient growth time passes, there is clearly a change and development in the body allowing it to happen: specifically, quite apart from the process of locomotion, a change from horizontal living to the upright vertical direction. In the Alexander Technique, they talk about the Primary Control. ‘Bad posture’ relates to an impaired Primary Control, which is a dynamic relationship between the head, neck, and back. Conversely, to the trained Alexandrian eye, children often have a beautiful bodily balance derived from the uncorrupted Primary Control.The same applies to animals and it can be further detected in exceptional dancers, athletes, and martial artists.
Walking is instinctive. Returning to it, in the form of a few days in the hills or two weeks in the Pyrenees which for me is forthcoming, is correspondingly therapeutic. You immerse yourself, not only in a big natural environment full of silence, but in the simple act of walking.
It affirms the self in terms of our capacity to walk, and negotiate the world according to our own powers. It activates, I suspect, sensory nerve circuits which atrophy at the desk, which in turn refreshes the whole being. We are rhythmic organisms full of pulses, energy flows, and the shift of watery, electric, and mechanical weight. Walking harmonises all of this with – I suspect – a biological link to the breath and its connection to psychological states. Prolonged walking makes the act primary, counterbalancing excessive emphasis on worry and mentation. Walk for ten hours, and you start to release your fixation on your problems. Walk for ten more after camping in the hills overnight and you feel soothed and calmed, and start to feel therapeutically immersed in the outdoors. Walk for ten days, and you discover the real power of walking. Australian Aborigines had a tradition of “going on a walkabout” which meant no more or less than that; simply to walk, for its own benefit, often at moments of stress or emotional upset, lasting days, weeks,or even months. Just to get away – and walk.
We are mind, emotions, and body. Walking, as an instinctive act tracing back to a primary psychological stage, balances mind and emotions whereby they ‘calm down’ when walking is your uppermost activity, filling the day. Your attention shifts – you walk, and the mind is soothed in the process whereby walking is uppermost.
Any physical exercise can do this but the rhythmic and sustained act of walking is, I think, especially beneficial; more so when it’s undertaken in inspiring and beautiful environments like Scotland, Wales, the Lake District, the Alps or – my favourite – the lovely Pyrenees.