FELLOW WANDERERS

(AN INCOMPLETE LIST)

Here are some of your partners on the wandering path:

WALT WHITMAN

(1819–1892) American writer Walt Whitman was one of the greatest wanderers and observers of all time, able to participate fully in his experience every time he went out into the world. It was rumored that he existed on a higher plane of consciousness than most people. People reported to be forever changed after spending time with him. His prose was the result of his daily roamings around the streets of New York City.

 

FERNANDO PESSOA

(1888–1935) Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa once said, “I am a nomadic wanderer through my consciousness.” Pessoa wandered through the streets of Lisbon, sometimes day and night. He was considered a flâneur, one who wanders aimlessly, and he wrote in the voice of seventy-five different heteronyms (imaginary characters).*





 

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

(1889–1951) Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was known to stop mid-walk on the paths around Killary to draw various symbols in the mud with his walking stick.*

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1770–1850) The great English Romantic poet William Wordsworth was known for his habit of walking, sometimes for up to five months at a time, with only one change of clothes and a pencil.

CHARLOTTE SMITH

(1749–1806) Charlotte Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. Her writing was inspired by her wanderings in the English countryside and along the shore. Smith’s poems were also meandering, not linear, similar to the wandering state of mind that occurs when one is in a contemplative state.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

(1821–1867) French poet Charles Baudelaire has become a symbol of one who feels in his element while in a crowd. While not invented by Baudelaire, the concept of the flâneur—“wandering without aim, stopping once in a while to look around”—has been linked to both his character and his poetry. Baudelaire wandered the streets of Paris and in doing so became the voice of the flâneur.

 

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

(1817–1862) American writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, which detailed his choice to live simply in nature for two years. As he puts it, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”* Thoreau most exemplifies the wandering lifestyle through his philosophy of “living deliberately, being awake, and learning what the soul thrives on.”

WALTER BENJAMIN

(1892–1940) German philosopher Walter Benjamin promoted the idea of the flâneur in his commentaries on Baudelaire. Benjamin’s idea of the flâneur is that of a wanderer in a modern city, one who needs the crowd yet is isolated by it. Benjamin himself was a wanderer of the streets of Paris and also a collector.

NASSIM TALEB

(1960– ) Contemporary writer Nassim Taleb writes in the essay “Why I Walk” about how he partakes in lots of aimless wandering combined with short sprinting as a foundation for his “anti-fragile” lifestyle. He also writes at length about the need for randomness and variation, which he says creates resilience and strength.

ARISTOTLE

(384–322 BC) The great Greek thinker Aristotle founded the Peripatetic school of philosophy around 335 BC. Peripatetic means “one who walks habitually and extensively.”* Members of his school followed a “tradition of meditative walking in which philosophical thought is in some way harnessed to the physical movements of the walker.”*

PEACE PILGRIM

(1908–1981) American non-denominational spiritual leader and anti-war activist Peace Pilgrim wandered and walked across the United States and Canada for twenty-eight years, spreading the word of peace. She documented her philosophy and her travels in the book Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words.*

JOHN MUIR

(1838–1914) Scottish-American naturalist and nature writer John Muir wrote about his explorations in nature (specifically the Sierra Nevada mountains of California), and devoted much of his life to the preservation of wilderness in the United States. Upon visiting Yosemite for the first time, Muir “was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower.”*

 

JOSEPH MITCHELL

(1908–1996) American writer Joseph Mitchell spent his days wandering the streets of Manhattan. Through his walking he met many colorful characters and was known for his portraits of eccentrics and people on the fringes of society. He wrote, “What I really like to do is wander aimlessly in the city. I like to walk the streets by day and by night. It is more than a liking, a simple liking—it is an aberration.”

VIRGINIA WOOLF

(1882–1941) Writer Virginia Woolf liked to spend her time during her youth “solitary trampling.”* She said walking in the countryside allowed her to “have space to spread my mind out in.” Later in life, wandering allowed her to escape the solitude of writing as well as her identity. She carried out much of her creative thinking and plotted her novels as she walked.

GUY DEBORD

(1931–1994) French Marxist theorist Guy Debord made urban exploration into a conscious experiment. He started the Situationist International in the 1950s, which participated in psychogeography, a method of moving around a city based on randomness, or “subordination of habitual influences.” He also created the concept of dérive (French for “drifting”) in which “one or more persons in a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.”*

 

ARTHUR MACHEN

(1863–1947) Gothic horror writer Arthur Machen was known to write in the evening and go on long rambling walks across London. Machen once wrote, “Of all this the follower of the London Art must purge himself when he sets out on his adventures. For the essence of this art is that it must be an adventure into the unknown, and perhaps it may be found that this, at last, is the matter of all the arts.”*

BASHŌ

(1644–1694) The great Japanese poet Bashō, who is credited with inventing the haiku, spent his life immersed in nature. After a year in which he went through many tragic circumstances and lost everything he had, Bashō took to the road. From the age of forty, he traveled from place to place teaching poetry in each town or village he entered.

THICH NHAT HANH

(1926– ) Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh lives at the Plum Village Monastery in the south of France. He teaches and practices walking meditation all over the world. He once said, “To enjoy walking meditation isn’t difficult at all. You don’t need ten years of practicing mindful walking to be enlightened. You need only a few seconds. You just need to become aware that you are walking.”*

SØREN KIERKEGAARD

(1813–1855) Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard used walking to inform his writing. He would write until noon every day and then wander the streets of Copenhagen, observing with a keen eye. “When you go for a walk, let your thoughts wander aimlessly, snooping about, experimenting with first one thing and then another,” he instructed.*

ALICE P. HOBBS

(1980– ) Contemporary artist and avid collector Alice P. Hobbs’s story is shrouded in mystery and has been cause for much speculation. Hobbs’s work is informed by her daily wanderings around an undisclosed city as documented in a hard-to-find book entitled In the Realms of the Unexplored. While not much background information exists on the artist, she has developed a wide group of devoted followers who seek to uncover more about her life, process, and whereabouts.*

 

SOME MORE WANDERERS FOR YOU TO EXPLORE

GEORGE ORWELL (1903–1950): an English writer whose work focused on social justice.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785–1859): an English essayist best known for his reflections on addiction and the self.

BRUCE CHATWIN (1940–1989): an English writer whose wanderings took him all over the world and earned him the label “travel writer,” a label he rejected.

W. G. SEBALD (1944–2001): a German academic and writer whose works explored themes of memory and decay of civilizations, traditions, and objects.

CHARLES DICKENS (1812–1870): an English writer and literary personality who criticized the harsh social stratification of society.

GRAHAM GREENE (1904–1991): an English author and spy who traveled the world to visit and write about remote places and adventures while collecting intelligence.

OSCAR WILDE (1854–1900): an Irish playwright, poet, and personality who became well-known for his wit and style and who advocated for experiencing all that life had to offer.

ARTHUR RIMBAUD (1854–1891): a French poet known for his reputation as a libertine who traveled widely on three continents.

GERTRUDE STEIN (1874–1946): an American writer who traveled across the United States before eventually settling in Europe.

GEORGES PEREC (1936–1982): a French writer and filmmaker whose work was highly experimental.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844–1900): a German philosopher who expounded ideas that questioned truth and promoted transcendence beyond structure.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712–1778): a Genevan-French philosopher who inspired the ideals of the French Revolution.

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902–1967): an American writer and social activist who traveled widely throughout the world and was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

C. S. LEWIS (1898–1963): an Irish-English novelist and theologian best known for his novels about the fantastical world of Narnia.

HERMANN HESSE (1877–1962): a Swiss poet and novelist whose work explored themes of the individual’s search for self-knowledge and spirituality.

REBECCA SOLNIT (1961– ): an American writer who was educated in the United States and Europe and has become a prominent activist for environmental and social change.

ROBERT WALSER (1878–1956): a Swiss modernist writer whose works blend playful serenity with existential exploration.

GARY SNYDER (1930– ): an American academic and writer who travels the world and writes about his immersions in different spiritual cultures and in nature.

JACK KEROUAC (1922–1969): an American poet and novelist of the Beat Generation, best known for his book On the Road, based on his travels across America with his friends.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1850–1894): a Scottish novelist and travel writer whose work took him across Europe and North America.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827): a German pianist and one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.

JAMES JOYCE (1882–1941): an Irish novelist and poet best known for Ulysses, a modernist work in which he explored the episodes of Homer’s Odyssey in a variety of literary styles.

MICHEL DE CERTEAU (1925–1986): a French Jesuit and scholar best known for The Practice of Everyday Life, which mused on a study of the repetitive and unconscious aspects of life.

RICHARD JEFFERIES (1848–1887): an English nature writer best known for his personal writings about rural life in the English countryside. His notable book The Story of My Heart was recently republished with notes by authors Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams.

WERNER HERZOG (1942– ): a German filmmaker known for filming in far-flung locations and using locals in his film projects to benefit what he calls “ecstatic truth.”

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757–1827): an English poet, painter, and printmaker whose diverse body of work embraced imagination.

NICK PAPADIMITRIOU (1959– ): an Englishman known as the “London Perambulator” who explores and archives the unknown through walking.

WILL SELF (1961– ): a British novelist and journalist. Self-described as a psychogeographer and a flâneur and has written about his many walking adventures.

ROBERT MACFARLANE (1976– ): a British travel writer who wrote The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.

GEOFF NICHOLSON (1953– ): a British novelist and nonfiction writer; author of The Lost Art of Walking.