Pilgrim Traveller

Here are a couple of quotes from philosophers I’ve come across recently. I think they’re  worth sharing and they also provide a fitting intoduction to the blog post I’m planning to write after this one.

From Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1712-1778), from “Confessions, Book 4”

I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs.

And from Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) from his “Journals and Papers”

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk yself into a state of well-being abd walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

I share these as one who has experienced their veracity, both in the realm of creativity and in maintaining a sense of good mental health…indeed losing the desire to walk has become, for me, a prime indicator of a slide into depession.