A philosophy of walking - Frdric Gros

By
walking, you escape from the very idea of identity, the temptation to
be someone, to have a name and a history ... The freedom in walking lies
in not being anyone; for the walking body has no history, it is just an
eddy in the stream of immemorial life.

In A Philosophy of Walking,
a bestseller in France, leading thinker Frdric Gros charts the many
different ways we get from A to B-the pilgrimage, the promenade, the
protest march, the nature ramble-and reveals what they say about us.

Gros
draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something
central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager
seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while
Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked
in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write.
In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the
same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought.

Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.