“Writers are the custodians of memory, and that’s what you must become if you want to leave some kind of record of your life…”
Pay close attention.
Carry a notebook everywhere. Capture what strikes you as interesting in words or images.
Transfer those random interesting bits and bobs to your container, a logbook or index cards, where thoughts marinate and emerge reformed as new ideas, knowledge.
But how does the magic happen? How do we make the new connections that turn bits of information into knowledge or bobs of inspiration into art?
I mean, the stew doesn't stir itself.
Stir the pot by taking a long walk, preferably in nature--woods, beach, exposed ridge, your choice.
But if woods and beaches aren't available, that's okay if it's creative thinking you seek. A city walk will do the trick of fanning that creative flame, connecting those random ideas into something new.
What's not optional is the walking.
Nor, it seems, is the act of actually moving through space.
In other words, efficiency in the form of a treadmill won't stir the stew.
Creative thinking needs boots on the pavement or path.
Walking increases a person's creative output by an average of 60 percent.
The magic is in the rhythmic movement, according to those Stanford researchers.
I've always known that walking works for my own creative impulses. (Glad to be backed up by science, now.)
What I've also known to be true (not yet studied, just another hunch on my part) is that we have the power to direct that creativity. To give it a job to do, whether it's to solve a problem, dream up an idea for a podcast, let a structure emerge for a new book or see a composition for a painting.
That's the gift of Intentional Hiking.
To give the Divine a creative project before setting foot on the trail. Then to pay attention while walking, notebook in hand, and allow the ideas to flow.
A daily habit of walking puts us in the company of brilliance.