Craig Mod On The Creative Power Of Walking

This first appeared successful Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here.

Article continues aft advertisement

The fullest time I cognize of originates pinch taking a image of a alien successful nan mediate of obscurity by 10 a.m. I do this while stepping nan historical roads of my location country, Japan. At 8 a.m. I group disconnected pinch nan extremity of clocking immoderate 20-40 kilometers, and by 9:50, I usually still haven’t taken that portrait. So I manically duck into immoderate shop mightiness beryllium on nan roadworthy (a tatami mat weaver, a farming devices shop, a convenience store), aliases I’ll outcry retired to a husbandman moving their field: Good morning! Uhh, tin I return your photo?! More often than not, they’re bemused (me, my rather evidently non-Japanese face, nan truth that I’m successful nan mediate of nowhere) and are happy to chat, and soon thereafter they’re happy to beryllium photographed.

That unlocks nan first imaginative enactment of nan day, and nan remainder travel arsenic easy arsenic nan locomotion itself. I’ll talk pinch a twelve people, each nan while dictating into a increasing statement connected my phone. I talk pinch nan owners of old-style mid-century Japanese cafes—kissaten—and barbers and rootlike shop proprietors and multi-generational family members of historical inns. I talk pinch small kids commuting to aliases from school, bopping alongside nan road, often awkward but mostly eager to engage, nevertheless slyly. I show them their municipality is beautiful (something much group should opportunity to much kids; and I mean it). One responds, “And conscionable what nan hellhole are you?!,” pinch a squeaky sound hidden down an umbrella.

I person been surviving successful Japan for twenty-five years and this talk comes easily, moreover successful nan countryside wherever folks mightiness transportation a heavy accent. *Howdy*. I plow through. Deploy historical facts. Try to show I’m not a complete chartless successful these parts, and though I don’t look for illustration a local, I cognize a spot of this aliases that, capable to beryllium considered a subtle ally, nevertheless cautiously.

Old men clip their hedges and I inquire them what their municipality utilized to beryllium for illustration twenty, 30 years ago. We talk astir depopulation, aging population. A societal rumor wherever Japan conscionable happens to beryllium connected nan forefront, but 1 which astir of nan world is—or will soon be—contending with. Like mislaid birdsong, those I talk to speak of nan joyful shrieks and laughter of children that utilized to beryllium everywhere, now gone. Gone, probably, for a bully agelong while arsenic these towns and villages vanish from maps and municipal records.

When I’m not talking, conscionable stepping (which is astir of nan time), I effort to cultivate nan astir saturated authorities of mind imaginable. A full void of stimulation beyond nan contiguous environment. My rules: No news, nary societal media, nary podcasts, nary music. No “teleporting,” you could say. The phone, nan awesome teleportation device, nan awesome murderer of boredom. And yet, boredom: the awesome motor of creativity. I now judge pinch each my bosom that it’s only successful nan crushing silences of boredom—without each that black-mirror dopamine — that you tin entree your deepest imaginative wells. And for truthful galore group these days, they’ve ne'er truthful overmuch arsenic attempted to dip successful a ladle, fto unsocial dive down into those uncomfortable waters made accessible done boredom.

For me, from this boredom—this blankness of mind arsenic I locomotion past sometimes fields and sometimes elephantine gambling pachinko parlors—words flow. I can’t extremity them. My mind originates penning astir what we spot and refuses to unopen up. That spread created by a deficiency of artificial stimulation is filled—thanks to nan magic plasticity of our brains—with words and much words. Without Candy Crush, an inverted arena sky spawns, and retired shoots: thoughts. I dictate arsenic I walk. From afar, it looks for illustration I’m either connected a committee gathering telephone pinch a CEO aliases americium insane. Amidst each of this, successful nan lulls of dictation, I photograph—people, objects, mountains, trees, stumps, deer, shrines, temples, dogs depressed and dogs joyful, homes good utilized and those abandoned.

Eventually, I get astatine an inn aliases edifice (my favorites are anonymous alleged “business hotels,” inexpensive things dotting nan archipelago, uniform, dependable, pinch accelerated net and washing machines and, astir importantly, silence). My feet? Hot successful spots, a spot wonky, eager to shed their shoes. Each night, I walk three, four, aliases 5 hours collating nan photographs, compiling my notes, doing laundry, creating an archive. By nan clip I beryllium down astatine night, my assemblage is tired but my mind—since I’ve been dictating passim nan day, collecting moments and snippets of dialogue—is electric, for illustration a crazy equine kicking astatine a barn door. It kicks nan doorway unfastened and disconnected we go—writing two, three, 4 1000 words. They get edited into thing mildly coherent, paired pinch a twelve photographs, and sent retired successful what I telephone a “pop-up newsletter.”

That is: a newsletter bounded by time, starting connected time x and finishing connected time y, astatine which constituent I delete nan point (including nan email addresses of each nan subscribers). Why delete everyone? Because a pop-up newsletter is simply a caller start, requiring enthusiastic consent. Readers person asked to beryllium automatically signed up for each of my pop-ups but that goes against nan accuracy of them — they’re meant to beryllium a thing, an event, and hitting “subscribe” is portion and parcel of nan process. And, anyway, being unsubscribed is simply a benignant of gentlemanly gesture—like thing Dick Van Dyke mightiness do if he wrote newsletters—we look to person mislaid successful astir online experiences. Here is my promise: x-number of emails, thing more, thing less. The result? Crazy precocious unfastened rates because group are excited to beryllium there.

I locomotion for weeks astatine a time. The longest locomotion I’ve done was astir forty days. Do this time aft day—the aggravated mileage, nan aggravated wordage, nan looking, nan talking, nan boredom-bathing, nan wringing texture and life from a day—and you are changed. It’s intolerable not to be. The full thing, an ascetic practice. I moreover shave my caput for illustration immoderate performative mendicant, 1 who lives disconnected stories arsenic alms. I’ve been doing walks for illustration this for six years now, and they’ve made maine much patient, kinder, much optimistic astir nan world, people, much amazed than ever astatine really galore goofy-ass animals (monkeys jumping disconnected bridges, mini bears moving for illustration small pigs, upland crabs that person nary correct to beryllium up connected a lookout) are retired location successful nan woods.

But possibly what I’ve gotten astir retired of these days is an knowing of “fullness.” That is, really much potential exists successful nan astir banal-seeming of itineraries. How everyone has a communicative worthy listening to, moreover if conscionable for 5 minutes. How nan specifications and patterns of life spell unseen pinch a caput stuck successful a phone. And how—after having walked for 8 consecutive hours, dense battalion connected my backmost (multiple cameras, laptop, rainfall gear), and past having written for hours, edited, banged nan matter into a publishable state, added photographs, and deed send, yet astatine nan extremity of nan day)—when my caput hits nan pillow astatine night, I grin knowing location was nary fuller time to beryllium had, nary amended measurement to person played nan cards dealt to maine connected that morning.

I recognize now I didn’t cognize fullness earlier I started stepping for illustration this. The locomotion taught maine fullness. It’s bully for illustration that, nan walk. Walking. I’ve now sewage hundreds of “max full” days nether my belt. You transportation nan emotion of those days backmost to your mundane life. You now person an archetype for a afloat “used up” day. That’s a powerful thing, and 1 that can’t beryllium learned done explanation alone. It must beryllium felt successful nan bones aft mile twenty, connected nan tenth time of doing 20 miles, connected nan tenth time of banging retired a text, collimating nan acquisition of connecting pinch strangers, emotion nan sonder of those you pass, melding nan time into words, pairing those words pinch images, creating a complete “object” aliases portion arsenic it were. And past pushing it retired into nan world (the publishing astatine nan extremity of nan time creates a benignant of stakes that I find is captious to eking retired that past driblet of fullness).

Anyway, I for illustration these walks, these large dumb walks unsocial on aged paths, paths erstwhile afloat of life, now a spot somber, but still beautiful successful their ain rusted ways. What happens to these pop-ups? Sometimes they go nan grist for a book. I took a locomotion 4 years agone during nan tallness of COVID. A 1000 kilometers on nan aged paths of a countryside peninsula called Kii. The essays from that locomotion became nan ground for Things Become Other Things, a communicative of a locomotion but besides a communicative of a friend, personification I had ne'er forgotten but wasn’t capable to look backmost astatine until nan locomotion helped maine do so, nan boredom gave maine nan courageousness and support to peek.

The fullest benignant of time I cognize originates mounting disconnected astatine 8 a.m. pinch immoderate large mileage successful mind. But sometimes nan power of nan locomotion keeps going, good beyond nan locomotion itself. Years later, slow and past suddenly, it is simply a book, a point successful hand, thing overmuch bigger than a locomotion alone.

____________________________________________

Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod is disposable via Random House.