Most summers, my family and I retreat to New England for much of July. From a professional perspective, I see this as an exercise in seasonality (to use a term from my book Slow Productivity), a way to recharge and recenter the creative efforts that sustain my work. This year, I needed all the help I could get. I had recently finished part one of my new book on the deep life and was struggling to find the right way to introduce the second.
During my first couple of days up north, I made rapid progress on the new chapter. But I soon began to notice some grit in the gears of my conceptual narrative. As I pushed forward in my writing, the gnashing and grinding became louder and more worrisome. Eventually, I had to admit that my approach wasn’t working. I threw out a couple thousand words, and went searching for a better idea.
It was at this point that we fortuitously decided to take a hike. We headed to Franconia Notch in the White Mountains, which we’ve always enjoyed for its unruly, romantic grandeur. We had decided to tackle the trek up to Lonesome Lake, a serene body of water nestled at 2,700 feet amid the peaks and ridges of Cannon Mountain.
The Lonesome Lake hike begins with a mile of steady elevation gain. At first, you’re accompanied by the sounds of traffic from I-93 below; your legs burning, mind still mulling the mundane. But eventually the trail turns, and the road noise dissipates. After a while, your attention has no choice but to narrow. Time expands. You almost don’t notice when the trail begins to flatten. Then, picking your way through spindly birches, you emerge onto the lake’s quiet, wind-rippled serenity.
It was at Lonesome Lake that my difficulties with my new chapter began to dissipate. With an unhurried clarity, I saw a better way to make my argument. I scribbled some notes down in the pocket-sized notebook I always carry. As we finally, reluctantly, made our way back down the mountain, I continued to refine my thinking.
Walking and thinking have been deeply intertwined since the dawn of serious thought. Aristotle so embraced mobile cognition—he wore out the covered walkways of his outdoor academy, the Lyceum—that his followers became known as the Peripatetic School, from the Greek peripatein, meaning ‘to walk around’.
My recent experience in the White Mountains was a minor reminder of this major truth. In an age where AI threatens to automate ever-wider swaths of human thought, it seems particularly important to remember both the hard-won dignity of producing new ideas de novo within the human brain, and the simple actions, like putting the body in motion, that help this miraculous process unfold.
