WALKING IS A WONDERFUL ACTIVITY. Sometimes we walk for practical reasons, to get from point A to point B, although if we’re constrained to footpaths we don’t often get to travel as the crow flies. The design of most city streets favours grid lines rather than the hypotenuse, and some meandering paths don’t favour straight lines at all. We may also walk as a way to explore or to energise the mind. When I walk, I leave my headphones at home – I’ve come to realise that some of my best ideas and inspired thoughts have come to me while my feet remain in motion and my mind’s not distracted. Any activity that allows our bodies to move can help to solidify connections between disparate thoughts. As our muscles move, more blood (and with it, oxygen) is pumped to all of our organs including the brain, where it can be gobbled up by our thinking – sometimes tackling deep questions about the nature of mathematics; other times focussed on what we should cook for dinner.
As someone who
