A joyless trudge? No, thanks | Hacker News Reader

A joyless trudge? No, thanks

theguardian.com

73 pointsthinkingemote94 comments

The article’s a bit of a troll piece, so I’m going to ignore it. One of my favourite pastimes in London was picking somewhere on the map I’d never been and just walking there. Sometimes just the centre of a borough I hadn’t been to before. Sometimes more than 10 miles in one go. Canal routes, hidden pathways, a new park, busy high streets. Lots of time to think or just watch.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of walking in Istanbul recently, but I’m running out of options. Maybe someone can suggest some interesting, out of the ordinary routes.

When in a new city with plenty of time to see how it works I pick someone who looks interesting and follow them, until they get on what is clearly commuter transport. Or, in a city like London, Amsterdam or Berlin you can follow someone on the bicycle for extra long rides to new places. Another thing I've done is look for a cafe on the other side of town and go exploring. Of course, keeping safe means always being aware where you are. As a woman it's always been heightened not to find myself out after dark on foot for example.

> Of course, keeping safe means always being aware where you are

There is also the other side of the coin: if you do this, make sure you aren't noticed.

Especially with women. Especially especially in the dark. It's not nice to make other people feel threatened.

Once, around fifteen years ago, I had a day free at the end of a short business trip to Seoul. I decided to explore the city randomly. I got on the subway, rode a few stops, and went up to ground level and walked around. I repeated this several times.

Each area turned out to be interesting in a different way, and I encountered things—a wholesale textile market, a maze-like residential neighborhood—I never would have seen if I had been following a guidebook.

Are you not afraid of coming across as a stalker ?

In a busy city there are so many people. I don't think I ever felt I was doing it in a way that was obvious and I never followed anyone home.

> The article’s a bit of a troll piece, so I’m going to ignore it. One of my favourite pastimes in London was picking somewhere on the map I’d never been and just walking there. Sometimes just the centre of a borough I hadn’t been to before.

This is how I approach travelling in general. Worked for me very well in Milan, Barcelona and Rome. Probably wouldn't work so well in less dense cities.

The best thing is casually stumbling upon something with a historical significance.

Especially London, which has to be one of the world’s great cities to walk in.

It really is a great city to walk in. Often walking is quicker than taking the tube I've found.

One route (slower than the tube this time) I liked was walking from the Thames near Charing cross to kings cross (or was it Liverpool Street) following the line of an underground river. It's remarkably quiet and not that long, maybe an hour? At one point you can put your ear to a manhole cover and hear the river beneath!

Was it the Kings Cross and the River Fleet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet

That's the one!

> One of my favourite pastimes in London was picking somewhere on the map I’d never been and just walking there.

You would prbly have been dead by now if you did that here in chicago.

> The article’s a bit of a troll piece, so I’m going to ignore it.

It's what we call "humor," actually. Ignorance of humor acknowledged.

I read it with an increasing series of delighted chuckles; it's a fine example of the kind of cultural observational humor that Bill Bryson is so famed for.

And now I think I shall go for an aimless walk...

Actually, we call it "humour".

Some semi-formal methods for this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive

Nice link. Will Self wrote a book called Psychogeography. Haven't read it yet, although it sounds interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography_(book).

You can start further out!

You may be surprised that the article pretty much agrees with you. That is, it states that walking is an excellent way to get to where you want to go, or to explore new things. It's basically just arguing that "circumambulation for circumambulation's sake" is dull and boring.

I don't know if it's that much of a troll piece (remember, it's talking about the UK specifically). Going for a walk to somewhere is fine. The article is bemoaning not really going anywhere at all, which has been the substantial reality if you've stuck to the rules of not going outside your "local area" (whatever the hell that has actually meant this entire time).

I live on my own and my bubble friends live about 12 miles away, because that's the reality of living in what's basically a dormitory village and working/socialising in town. I meet them about once a week for a walk, but options are limited because the county I live in isn't exactly known for its extensive network of public footpaths.

The whole "local area" thing is doubly ludicrous because I have to drive more than 5 miles to get to a supermarket. There is a shop in the village but, whilst it's OK for bits and pieces, it's not sufficient for a full grocery shop.

Nobody's ever stopped me or challenged me for leaving the village, which is overall a good thing because if they ever tried I doubt I'd be very kind to them. I've stuck to the rules for the last 12 months willingly enough but I'm getting seriously fed up of it. I haven't seen my family since October, including my nephew who recently celebrated his first birthday: you don't get that time back.

Not forever will I tolerate living under rules that infringe basic freedoms to a level that I doubt have been seen in Europe since before the Iron Curtain fell, whatever the situation with the virus or the vaccine might be.

> Running outdoors had all of walking’s problems, but faster, and with sweat.

The Japanese (I don't know if this is true or not but I heard it's a true fact) have a term called forest bathing, meaning to spend time surrounded by greenery soaking up the views. If you run, you can soak in twice as much greenery per unit of time.

This is one of the reasons I took up trail running. It's hard to disconnect for very long when working at a startup. But after a few years of training, I can cross entire mountain ranges in a day and see things I would never otherwise be able to see.

I don't know that it's in the spirit of forest bathing to apply this kind of efficiency mentality to it...

I have been living in Japan for a while but I never heard of that before, so I asked my girlfriend and she confirmed that yes, the term exists and Japanese people enjoy it, but:

- It doesn't feel like a particularly Japanese thing to do, walking in the forest is just basic human nature. But you know how everything is instantly 100% cooler if you give a Japanese name to it.

- Japanese forests are full of bears, so be very careful.

I'm British and I found the article funny and relatable. I'm sick to death of aimless walks.

It’s entirely optional, no? Surely you’re no sick to death of other people having them?

I think it's more the social pressure to engage in these walks, in spite of one's preferences, that's more at issue. At least that's how the article seemed to portray it.

In the Netherlands gyms have been closed for months and if you complain the excuse is ‘just go for a walk’. It’s not entirely optional if the only option for exercise is going for a walk or (adventure!) a bike ride.

It’s not the only option. You can do a wide variety of exercise without a gym or equipment.

Body weight exercises are a great form of strength training you can do anywhere with no equipment. You can replace walks with runs, sprints, or interval training. If you have an appropriate body of water near you, you can also go swimming without going to a gym or pool. Start intervals of boxing the air (if you haven’t done it before, you’ll be shocked at how long 45s is while you’re punching as quickly as you can).

With a minimal investment, you can take up jumprope. An excellent cardio exercise. Alternatively, grab a hula hoop, and learn to hula.

There are tons of exercises you can do that aren’t walking or going to a gym. It’s not a binary option.

Push-ups, sit-ups and some aerobics is another option.

I doubt the lockdown rules say "only walk or bike".

No, it’s just the government wondering why the population is becoming obese. You know, that risk factor that makes corona ten times as deadly.

In some circles, such walks are viewed as an axiomatically good thing. You're expected to go on them, and to do so enthusiastically. You could decline, or do so under protest, but that would be seen as deviant.

I think the author is attacking the normalisation of such trudging, rather than the trudging itself.

>In some circles, such walks are viewed as an axiomatically good thing. You're expected to go on them, and to do so enthusiastically. You could decline, or do so under protest, but that would be seen as deviant.

You just described my entire family.

The advantage of being surrounded by folks like this is I get to exercise (as in "keep it in shape") my built-in aversion to peer pressure daily.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I would have hoped that the introverted savants here would have more sympathy for being forced to take part in social activities

I’ve never heard of anyone being forced to take a leisure walk.

Normalization implies that there’s something abnormal about going outside for some light exercise, fresh air, and a change of scenery. I enjoy those things but it’s not hard to abstain from other normal activities that I don’t.

Clearly you are a golfer.

I agree about the humour, I even found it quite British! Maybe the author is being assimilated without their knowledge, and will soon become fond of aimless walks.

The people in the comments here seem to think this innocuous article is a personal attack on them or their hobby, or that people aren't allowed to have a good moan if they feel like it (moaning being another great pasttime of the British).

It's not the aimlessness. Real British walks are rarely aimless. They're often mapped and planned.

It's more the fact that apart from three weeks a year, British weather is relentlessly miserable.

So a "walk" - always in the country, because no one walks in cities - means shivering joylessly around an obstacle course of mud, rain, fog, marshy ground, drizzle, sleet, and snow.

For reasons I have never understood, this is considered a fun thing to do.

From "The Birth of The Modern" by Paul Johnson:

"So people walked, women as well as men. When Keats went on his tour of Scotland in 1818, he went by public coach as far as Lancashire and on foot thereafter. Worsworth, his sister Dorothy, and Coleridge began a similar Scottish tour together on foot, Coleridge branching off by himself at Stirling and continuing for nearly 300 miles until there was nothing left of his shoes. Dorothy Wordsworth, with a friend or relative, regularly walked from Penrith across the Pennines and moors to visit the Hutchinsons near Halifax. Hazlitt would walk from London to his writing base at Winterslow in Wiltshire. His first wife Sarah, while waiting for her Scottish divorce in Edinburgh, walked a total of over 200 miles to vist places of interest. Painters were great walkers, too, like the 'Ancients',who walked from London to see their friend Samuel Palmer on the Kentish coast at Shoreham, or Michael Angelo Rooker, who spent his summers 'pedestrian excursions, 18 miles a day.' So were musicians: The young Richard Wagner, despite his short legs, walked from Dresden to Leipzig and back. Saving money was one motive, seeing nature another, exercise a third. When the painter John Hoppner stayed with the nautical Duke of Clarence at Petersham, he was taken off every day after dinner for 'a walk of 10 or 12 miles."

No mention of the weather. I have more than once on reflecting on this passage wondered at the quality of their shoes.

[edited some egregious typos]

Whenever I hear stories of the 19th-century great English walks, I can only assume that that was a much more tolerant era where people could stop and sleep in the open air, or successfully ask random local people for a night's shelter. Today, England is so hostile to travelers who aren’t able to stop at formal accommodation every night, that bicycle tourers have to be very stealthy when free camping (as compared to Scotland, where free camping is still allowed).

Yeh I'm actually Scottish (I previously said I was British - it's context dependant ;). I always find the English rules around private land quite funny. Camping when cycling or walking in Scotland is way less stressful. Just find a remote plot and set down. In England every footpath has a notice beside it saying you really ought to stop for a moment and feel very grateful that the Lord Such and Such allowed you passage.

The worst is when the walk has achieved its natural climax and mercifully you're on your way back home, and someone suddenly suggests a new route to explore some unknown space adding unknowable length to the death march.

Even worse is camping. Once youve trudged to a treeless brown spot in the middle of the woods, set up a tent you're left with nothing to do. So what do you do? You walk.

You are welcome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plogging

Lovely, thanks.

I can’t stand the thought of lifting weights. So I just don’t do it. It’s never crossed my mind to write a 5000 word essay about it.

> A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, "And why were such things made in the world?"

-- Marcus Aurelius

Just want to thank you both for the delightful irony of these comments.

I'm no Stoic ;)

;)

People try to write just about anything today for "content".

Until now?

Until never.

If you don't like walking, do something else... But let walkers be walkers.

I personally love walking, and am doing more and more of it ("thanks" to Covid and my current personal situation). I'm happier. I'm healthier. I have more time to wander with my mind and think about things that can only surface in my mind while walking.

I lived in Australia for a year and very much enjoyed the walk to the bus stop each day. So many colorful birds, meeting people, everything was always interesting. Perhaps because I was in a different country, but gosh it was fun.

Australia is fucking great. A shame about their draconian immigration VISA laws.

Just be rich, that's the trick. Like mastercard, being rich works everywhere too. :P

Nah. Come here for study, work part time, find sponsor, you're done!

Well I did. One degree. Then another. A sponsor will lets your ass survive for 5 years, maybe 10 if you get an extension on your sponsorship. Then you're out. Forget your old life, because you're going back wherever you came from. "In fact we don't care, just get out of our borders."

It's the same in most countries isn't it? My presence in Germany still depends on my ability to pay taxes.

At least in the UK if you've lived here (under whatever visa or rules allow you to) for 10 years and pass some fairly straightforward (if a bit silly) tests you can effectively stay indefinitely (whether you aim to become a full citizen or not). The process is a bit expensive and bureaucratic (and the home office often maliciously incompetent), but in principle if you've stayed here long enough you don't have much threat of being kicked out.

A really useless article. Walk or don't walk, it doesn't really matter. The author suggests doing some HIIT training with friends instead... It just doesn't make sense to compare the activities.

For a better understanding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_a_Small_Island

Reminds me of the "walking meetings" one my former PMs used to like to do. One of several reasons I quit that job.

“It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” —Nietzsche

Check out "the Philosophy of Walking". A lot of great thinkers saw "going for a walk" as something central to their practice. But this article doesn't mention any of that, how much our modern world was shaped by walkers.

edit: lol downvotes

One of my favorite things in the world is going for a long walk or bike ride and listening to a good podcast. I would love to do that in the places the author is moaning about.

It’s a fun read but I concur with other commenters about it being a sarcastic rant about something the author doesn’t enjoy (probably because they are doing it wrong - also surprised a Canadian would complain about not having the right shoes given the “no bad weather, only bad clothing” mantra Canadians live by. ).

I'm Canadian, I don't think I've ever heard another Canadian say that mantra and it does make sense to some degree.

There is absolutely "bad weather" because I don't think anyone will call -30/-40C plus wind in the middle of winter as "good weather".

It's actually a Scandinavian mantra. Basically something moms tell their kids to make them go outside and play regardless of weather.

I have heard Canadians say it - so it’s your anecdata vs. my anecdata :)

Thanks to the replier who helpfully pointed out the saying originated in Scandinavia.

It’s a fun read but I concur with other commenters about it being a sarcastic rant about something the author doesn’t enjoy

It's the Guardian. The thought that anyone, anywhere might enjoy something means they want it banned.

I enjoyed the article. I do think the author should take up photography though, if only to give those aimless walks a purpose :)

There are many pleasure walkers here who seem to be so upset at the guile of someone who dares criticize their beloved pastime that they completely missed the point of the article. The author's issue is with walking "culture" that encourages walking for walking's sake. In other words, walking that ignores surroundings and is more concerned with either the concept of walking or an interior journey where surroundings are just a backdrop to encourage thinking. I completely agree. These type of walkers aren't walking to see nature or observe new surroundings, they're walking to just "be". It reminds me of running hikers or mountain bikers that blow past you on beautiful hiking trails oblivious to the beauty around them. Walking or hiking to these people is more about the personal narcissistic pleasure they can wrench out of their surroundings rather than being receptive and "taking in" the beauty of nature. It's about "running" or "walking" and consuming views. I actually prefer Instagram hikers over runners. At least the Instagrammer is looking for beauty to share with others. The runners, pleasure walkers and mountain bikers are blazing over nature, the rest of you be damned.

I think this all boils down to "why do you like what I don't like?"

long but enjoyable piece from back in February

The Guardian really couldn't get any worse could it. Article for the sake of an article. Yes I'm British, walking is exploration and time to think, to socialise. I don't understand the motivation of someone, like the author, to live in a country they clearly dislike.

Every time you think you’ve seen Peak Guardian...

Isn't it some kind of an opinion fluff piece in the "Lifestyle" section?

I like how it goes on and on and on. Aimlessly, like the walks she dislikes.

Looking forward to the next article on how she doesn't like sushi. Having fish and chips? A joy. A good Bouillabaisse? A delight! But raw fish with soy sauce and rice? Thanks, but no. Ok.

It's a humorous piece. Take it less seriously.

It isn't funny though lol, just pointless. Certainly not worth posting to HN. Maybe I'm missing some super high-brow wit here...

Yup, I too wondered how it ended on the front page nonetheless

The chuff is this downvoted? Haha

There's "We should celebrate walking in Britain now more than ever" [1] from the Daily Telegraph if that's more your bag:

"At 9pm, with only the faintest glow left in the west, the birds stopped singing. Venus blazed and, as darkness deepened, others joined: Arcturus, Procyon, the Plough. A breeze riffled ink-black trees. Bats swooped. Something scuttered in the hedge. I knew exactly where I was; I’d walked this circuit of country lanes many times, and since lockdown almost daily. But I’d never done it at night. This time I wasn’t just walking with my legs; I was walking with every pore, every nerve. ..."

Could almost be written by Boris himself.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/unite...

Equally pointless.

The Guardian certainly does get worse than this article. It's a light and humorous look at a British cultural quirk from an outsider's perspective. I quite enjoyed it. We should think ourselves lucky it's not yet another tedious exploration of how, for example, hiking is racist and we should all be ashamed.

Purple articles are from the lifestyle section. They’re not really meant to be hard hitting news or anything.

All I can say is I hope she enjoyed writing this pointless article as much as I enjoy my pointless walks.

Lots of folks butt-hurt that somebody doesn't share their enthusiasms. But honestly, my favorite hikes are to a cabin, where I stay for several days. Some of us don't enjoy the same things. I identify with the author.

I enjoy hiking (what we call it in the states) but I don't always have the time or access to an ideal trail without a lot of travel. To 'hack' around this I use a weighted backpack (a.k.a ruck sacking) and either just wander interesting neighborhoods or hit the easier nature walks/trails. After about an hour you kinda get similar physical exertion and the feeling of a longer hike without the time or trudge costs. I still like to do some 'real' hiking when I can but rucking is a nice way to squeeze in a little outside time when I can.

British people would usually distinguish walking and hiking.

Walking covers everything. If the walk is sufficiently long and vigorous, it is also a hike.

Why does HN allow Guardian submissions at all? What’s next, links to 4chan threads?

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

There have been plenty of good submissions from there. Of course, like all major media sites, most articles are bad and/or uninteresting for HN. That's fine; just don't post those ones.

The current submission was a little offbeat but that's a good thing.

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