Like Nietzsche, Walk to Write
Conversations, good books, quiet time for reflection — everyone knows that these are important ingredients for creative thought. But they’re not enough; too many writers overlook movement as a catalyst for creativity. The best ideas come from walking.
Some of the world’s greatest minds have relied on a curious link between their brains and feet. Immanuel Kant walked the same route every day — in fact, he never left the city of Königsberg his entire life. Virginia Woolf, in Mrs. Dalloway, said that “the simple pleasure of walking is a way of restoring a sense of one's self.”
Nietzsche was another great writer who walked to write — whenever he had an idea he would pause to scribble it down on the small notebook he carried with him. He once said, “Sit as little as possible; do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement.” When he wrote The Wanderer and His Shadow, he walked alone for up to eight hours a day. The book was thought out and composed almost entirely en route, using up six small notebooks.
For Nietzsche, walking was not about relaxation or fitness; it was about creativity. Thinking is a form of walking. It’s your mind plotting a course through conceptual territory. Writing, then, is like marking a trail through that same territory — so that others can walk where you have.
Walk to think, and think to write. Great ideas emerge from aimless movement. Let your attention be free to wander, and don’t hold back from parading your imagination into the world in front of you.
