Walking!

May 17th, 2014| Topic: RaMbLeS | 8

“Give Your Ideas Some Legs” is the title of a provocative paper by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz, published recently in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

It all began when Oppezzo was an education grad student of Schwartz at Stanford. Apparently they would go for walks on campus to discuss topics related to her dissertation, on creativity.

Said Oppezzo:

And one day I thought: ‘Well, what about this? What about walking and whether it really has an effect on creativity?’”

So, with that brainwave, the two of them, student and prof, recruited a bunch of undergrads [most guinea pigs are of this species!] for their experiments. They put these subjects in a deliberately drab and dull room that had only a desk and a treadmill. Students were required to sit and complete tests of their creativity—things like coming up quickly with alternative uses for common objects, such as a button, for example. Then they had to pace the treadmill, which, BTW, faced a blank wall. And as they did so, they repeated those creativity tests.

Lo and behold, for almost all of the tested folks, creativity increased significantly during walking. Many came up with 60% uses for buttons and nails and paper clips and stuff. Walking increases creativity! Hence the subtitle of their article: “The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking.”

But there is more. This beneficial effect of walking upon creativity lingered, even after the end of the stroll, as they sat down afterwards to take more of those inane tests.

So what about walking outdoors?

You might guess that walking outside should be even better for creativity. But you would guess wrong!

A lush, leafy campus walk in Palo Alto, CA, was no better than a walk on a machine in a drab and dull room.

Just walking improved matters, no matter where it was conducted.

It might not matter where you walk. But I’ll say this: It matters with whom you walk.

Then Enoch walked with God ….
So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.
Genesis 5:22–23

Other Old Testament heroes have done that, too.

Noah walked with God.
Genesis 6:9

The Psalmist hoped to do so:

I shall walk before the LORD In the land of the living.
Psalm 116:9

In fact, all of God’s people were expected to do so.

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

This is to have a special intimacy with God in a life of spirituality.

God was known to walk with man (Gen 3:8), but for man to walk with God was something else.

Walking with God. Enoch and God, walking together. In proximity. In fellowship. In closeness. Walking together. For 365 years!

Perhaps the most perfect of all the lives lived on earth thus far, Enoch lives the least number of years, 365 (everyone else in Genesis 5 is much longer-lived).

And isn’t it interesting that all the other patriarchs in Genesis 5 are said to die: “and he died” is a constant refrain. But Enoch, he reversed the trend.

Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Genesis 5:24

God just took Enoch. To be with God. That’s what he wants for all of his people, that they may dwell in his presence, be with him, walk with him, together.

Yes, you’ll be creative if you just walk. But you’ll find bliss if you walk with God!