If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk. – Raymond Inmon

My first response to anyone who asks, ‘what do you think about when you walk?’ is always ‘nothing.’

That is true, I think about nothing; walking is meditative for me. It clears my head, it calms me. I am less anxious, my worries fade, my mind slows.

The obvious ‘nothing’ does not explain it all. There seems to be something else going on behind the consciousness curtain. Unnoticed, my subconscious seems to be active; cleaning things up, connecting random ideas and sorting them in new ways.

I have returned from long walks sprinkled with creative pixie-dust, inspired with a turn-of-phrase that tickles me, illuminated by a previously hidden idea, directed to rethink some issue, guided to some new insight that I can only now see.

Obviously, I am not the first to notice the inspirational effects of going for long walks. Many more famous people with a greater capacity to articulate the beneficial effects of walking and inspiration have described the phenomenon.

I have never thought so much, existed so much, lived so much, been so much myself; if I may venture to use the phrase, as in the journeys which I have made alone and on foot. – Jean Jacques Rousseau.

A real writer gets paid for his/her efforts, I have never managed that measure of success. I feel more comfortable being called a starving writer, I’ve never been paid much for my work. 

But, having been told that writers write, I write. I have tried to find my own voice. It was tougher than I imagined.

What did I want to say and how did I want to say it? It became a heavy burden. I wrote journals of my travels and adventures, big and mostly small.

I wrote stuff and kept it private; mostly I wrote about issues that I cared about – my sanctimonious pontificals. Polemics are easy, crank up the sense of moral outrage and erupt in ink on a page (or with digital bits and bytes into the ether). They satisfied for a while.

I needed a bigger platform. I began writing the occasional column for the Calgary Herald. I received no money but felt that rush of ego and adrenaline coursing through my veins when I opened the Herald to the op-ed page and saw MY column – WOW! My words in ink!

I was often stymied as I evolved in this voyage of ink and ideas. I was in many cases inarticulate, agitated and unproductive. There was an idea out there in the fog but it only had a vague shape. It wasn’t clear, I couldn’t find the words to express what I had hoped to communicate. The words did not emerge that allowed me to describe this idea. I could not break through.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. – Friedrich Neitzche

I found that when I went for runs, sometimes something clicked. An idea took shape, the fog rolled back, the words came. It was an unintended consequence of my new found life of exercise; it didn’t always happen and I never pushed my luck. Yet, it was more than serendipity. Cause and effect.

Running helped break through my inarticulate efforts to write, when I became a walker, the occasional inspiration became regular. There is something about the pace of walking, the slowness, the repetitiveness, the almost boring simplicity of the walk that seems to energize the subconscious – the Muse.

I have read that Wordsworth, Thoreau, Darwin, Hemingway and Dickens were walkers, seeking inspiration whenever they felt unable to achieve the clarity and brilliance of choosing just the right words to create just the right sentence to carry the thought forward with conviction. The walk cleared whatever was blocking their creativity.

Walking allows for the clearing of the brain; the period after, rest and contemplation, opens the floodgates of creativity and inspiration. Newton may have conceived and clarified his thoughts on gravity while sitting under a tree. Could I be so bold as to suggest that he had a bit of a walk to get to the tree?

There seems to be some science to buttress the notion that walking stimulates creativity; more blood flowing to the brain, more oxygen, fewer distractions, the monotonous almost hypnotic regularity of the movements. Common sense tells me that is likely.

Walking should be the tenth of the Greek muses; it truly is magical to my creative process. Whenever I feel confused, inarticulate, uncreative and uninspired I tighten my boots, shoulder my pack, don my cap and head out the door for a long walk. 

Perhaps it is this simple; perambulation leads to perspiration, which leads to inspiration.