{"id":3398,"date":"2024-12-01T05:30:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T12:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=3398"},"modified":"2024-12-01T05:30:32","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T12:30:32","slug":"walk-with-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=3398","title":{"rendered":"Walk with Others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI like tramping alone, but a companion is well worth finding. He will add to the experience; perhaps double it.\u201d The words came from Stephen Graham whom Morris Marples (Shank\u2019s Pony: a study of walking) called \u201cthe greatest prophet of 20<sup>th<\/sup> century walking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still Graham had his critics. Famous walkers like Hazlitt, Rousseau and Thoreau insisted you must go alone. Robert Louis Stevenson was adamant: \u201cIf you go walking in a group or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking tour but \u201csomething else more in the nature of a picnic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Are you thinking what I\u2019m thinking? RLS must have been somewhat of a recluse.<\/p>\n<p>That said, those of you who have been walking for years know it is a false choice anyway. You can walk sometimes alone and other times with companions and enjoy the unique benefits of each. Annabel Streets argued the psychological benefits of the latter, mostly as an antidote to loneliness (although Thoreau said one is never alone in Nature).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we walk in company, wrote Streets, \u201cwe drift freely between individuals and conversations shifting when we change direction or turn a corner, sometimes talking but sometimes walking in silent synchronicity.<\/p>\n<p>I get it. I\u2019m thinking of family walks in the Palo Duro where I sped up or slowed down to walk alongside a child or grandchild. And I get the \u201csilent synchronicity\u201d thing. When you come out of the forest to first glimpse a stunning alpine landscape, you don\u2019t need words to explain your feelings to a hiking buddy.<\/p>\n<p>In tomorrow\u2019s blog I\u2019ll tell you why Mark Twain enjoyed walking with others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI like tramping alone, but a companion is well worth finding. He will add to the experience; perhaps double it.\u201d The words came from Stephen Graham whom Morris Marples (Shank\u2019s Pony: a study of walking) called \u201cthe greatest prophet of 20th century walking.\u201d Still Graham had his critics. Famous walkers like Hazlitt, Rousseau and Thoreau [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3399,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}