Short podcast episode by Brian Johnson arguing that walking—especially in nature and without digital distractions—facilitates deep thinking and creativity. The host cites historical examples (Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Kant, Darwin, Aristotle), notes modern science supports walking’s cognitive benefits, and issues a simple +1 challenge: go for a walk and leave your smartphone behind.
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You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. Today we're going to talk about walking. Walking is awesome. In fact, it's so old school, epically awesome in helping thinkers think that our ancient friends even had a Latin phrase to capture its power. Salvatur ambulando. It is solved by walking. Nietzsche would agree. He said all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. Kierkegaard would agree. He puts it this way. I have walked myself into my best thoughts. Then we have Immanuel Kant. He was so consistent with his daily walks that you, his neighbors, could set their clocks to the time he passed their houses. They even named a street after him called Philosopher's Walk. Then we have Charles Darwin. For nearly 40 years, he followed his schedule with clockwork precision. And you know what made it on the schedule every day? His walk. And he was so committed to it that he actually leased his neighbor's land just so he could complete a loop on what became known as sand walk. Although he preferred to call it his thinking path. Then there's Aristotle. He and his followers walked so much as they thought and taught and philosophized that they were known as the peripatetics, which literally means walking up and down. Of course, modern scientists have proven just how powerful walking is for us, for creativity and other reasons, especially doing so in nature. So yeah, ancient and modern philosophers agree, walking is pretty powerful. But pop quiz, you know what none of those philosophers had on their deep thinking walks? Smartphones. Of course, none of them lived in a world with such a non stop tsunami of digital distractions. But I can assure you that no self respecting, deep thinking lover of wisdom would bring a device that that would subject them to other people's thoughts on a walk intended to tap into their own thoughts. So how about you? Today's +1. Go for a walk. Ideally somewhere easy to get to, yet beautiful. And leave your smartphone at home or in the car or whatever. Say hello to your deep thoughts for me. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.
