思考与写作bbc.co.uk
无目的行走的缓慢消亡
The slow death of purposeless walking
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导读
BBC 杂志的这篇文章探讨了'无目的散步'正在消亡的现象：汽车、手机导航和现代生活方式让人们越来越少漫无目的地走路，而历史上许多思想家（如狄更斯、梭罗）都把散步与思考紧密联系在一起。文章还提到边走路边看手机带来的分心与伤害。
为什么经久不衰：它触及了散步与思考、创造力之间的联系这一永恒话题，在通勤和屏幕占据一切的时代，提醒人们重新拾起这种最简单的思维习惯。
HN 评论精选
远程工作者用散步充当'通勤'来切换工作与生活状态
作为在家工作的人，我把'无目的'散步当作一天工作的开始和结束，视之为我的'通勤'。散步能清空头脑、到户外走走，帮我把家庭生活和工作区分开。对我来说这些散步或许不是必需的，但绝非没有目的。
themoonbus查看英文原文
As some one who currently works from home, a "purposeless" walk is how I start and end my work day – I think of it as my "commute". Walking clears my head, gets me outside for a bit, and helps me separate my home life from my work life. For me, those walks might not be a necessity, but they are definitely not without purpose.
散步是缓解高强度脑力工作压力的良药
写论文那段时间我压力巨大，每晚晚饭后都沿同一条路线散步一小时，穿过田野，在日落时分放空大脑、感受风景和风。我相信这个过程真的帮我保住了理智。散步真的很健康。
kleiba查看英文原文
There were times in my life (thesis writing) where I'd go and sit in the library all day to work and come home in the early evening. The psychological stress on me during that time was tremendous. Every evening, after coming home, I'd have a small dinner and then go for a one-hour walk, always the same route. At that time, I lived in a small town, and my route would take me down a dead-end street, across another one, and then on to the fields where there weren't any cars and hardly any people. Just a wide space with a bit of a view. This was usually just before sunset. Continuing on, I would eventually get back to a different part of the town I lived, I had to climb up some stairs and walk through a quiet neighborhood before getting back to my own street. All in all, it took around one hour to walk that way. I believe that this process really helped me save my sanity during that time of extended mental stress. I could literally air our my brain, and also get some mild physical activity after sitting in the library all day. I tried really hard not to think about my thesis, but just to take in the scenery, the light, the wind. Sometimes it rained. It was really healthy. In contrast, I remember a former co-worker telling me about a road trip they once did. I think it was in Arizona, but I might be wrong. Anyway, after driving for many hours, they decided to take a break and just to walk down the road for a few minutes before hitting the road again. So they pulled over and started walking. Sure enough, in no time, they get stopped by the cops who inquire what the heck the are doing! They weren't walking on the road or in any otherwise dangerous fashion -- but apparently in that area, just being out and about on foot was enough of a reason to be considered suspicious. :-)
美国郊区的城市设计和社会氛围都在排斥步行
住在纽约时我爱死了能走路去任何地方、不用买车。但最近几个月在美国郊区，很多地方对步行者充满敌意：人行道经常断掉，晚上散步会被投以怀疑的目光，好像我在踩点偷东西似的。除非遛狗或有人同行，否则独自散步的男人几乎不存在。
mattjaynes查看英文原文
Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places. Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again. Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks. Am I frightening the neighborhood by going on a walk after dark? It sure feels like it. In suburbia, I'll even get suspicious looks walking during the day - as if I'm scoping out houses to rob or something. And I'm a pretty boring safe looking type of guy (so I'm told, haha). The exception to this I've found is if I'm walking a dog or walking with another person (preferably female) to legitimize me as a walker. The longer I'm in these parts of suburbia, the more I realize that these attitudes are somewhat justified. Sadly, I don't think I've ever seen a man walking around the neighborhoods by himself unless he was a vagrant. Apparently the vast majority of men in these neighborhoods just don't ever go on walks unaccompanied. Otherwise it would turn into a 'normal' activity and the suspiciousness of it would subside. I realize there are probably great neighborhoods in the US for walking, but from my limited experience (living in ~10 states), they seem pretty rare outside of urban centers. I spent a lot of time in Germany (US military communities) growing up and it was a totally different experience. Much of Europe that I've seen is likewise a vastly better experience for walking. In 6 days I'm moving to Berlin. Why? Well, I'm bootstrapping a small systems-training business and want to live somewhere low cost and without a car. While cheap walkable places surely must exist in the US, they're rare and I haven't been able to find many that are also safe and not run-down. If I'm missing some, please let me know! After being in US suburbia for the last few months, I'm really looking forward to being a first-class citizen as a walker again.
文章的前提站不住脚：无目的散步从来不是大众普遍的习惯
人们并没有失去对无目的散步的热爱，它也不是在'慢慢消亡'。能无所事事地闲逛从来都是奢侈的特权。大多数人走在街上不是狄更斯式的思想漫游，只是在'工作'和'家'之间通勤而已。
mseebach查看英文原文
> But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk? BBC Magazine strikes again. No, they're not losing it, it's not "slowly dying". Did "people" at large ever have that? Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently. If anything, the existence of "[a] number of recent books [that] have lauded the connection between walking - just for its own sake - and thinking" would suggest that walking is enjoying a renaissance - this time for the masses. > Many now walk and text at the same time. There's been an increase in injuries to pedestrians in the US attributed to this. One study suggested texting even changed the manner in which people walked. > It's not just texting. This is the era of the "smartphone map zombie" - people who only take occasional glances away from an electronic routefinder to avoid stepping in anything or being hit by a car. This is pure Marie Antoinette. 200 years ago, peasants would only glance up from their plows to avoid hitting a rock in the field, or whatever, and surely the savants of the time deplored that as well. Here's a thought: Most people walking around in the city aren't out on an Dickensque intellectually stimulating aimless wander, they're not out to tread a deep mental path in the words of Thoreau, they are in transit between two places, we could vulgarly call them "work" and "home", and the transit bit is an undesired period of downtime. You'll have to be an intellectual to problematise their choice of filling that period with something else than romantic observation of the very same surroundings they look at twice daily for years.
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