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A review by jbingb
In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration by Shane O'Mara
4.0
82: In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration by Shane O'Mara
I saw a reference to this book and O'Mara's ideas somewhere else earlier this year (I no longer remember where/when, exactly) and was prompted to order and then read the book.
I have tried to figure out also what compelled me to read it, as I am an avid walker and have long been, and while I have gotten out of the habit at times, either due to season--am I a fair weather walker? Maybe--or other demands, I still understand completely all of the ways in which I feel better about life when I do, daily, walk, and occasionally--say on weekends--for even longer. I feel better in body, mind, and spirit...and so keep up that habit as best I can.
That said, I'm not certain what I wanted from this book. Confirmation of what I already knew? Directions for improvement? A magical formula of the right amount for my "person" per day to epitomize all of the valuable effects? Recommendations for the right outerwear for walking through a Wisconsin winter? What? I'm really not sure. But I didn't really get any of those answered or addressed in satisfying form.
I found that I was not actually all that interested in the scientific explanations O'Mara provided for, say, our evolution into a walking species--a number of reasons--including the ability to move things, then, from place A to place B with our hands (vs. crawling on four "legs"). But I'm still thinking about that now, to be honest...and how valuable it is that "someone" figured that out and that we all now, as humans, just do it...quite naturally.
Although to that same issue, as much time (the entire book) as O'Mara devotes to the value of and importance of walking (in all the ways I already knew), he never provided satisfactory option for any (and there are many) who are missing limbs and/or wheelchair-bound and how they are to gain the same valued mechanical movement--how to trigger all of the same scientific benefits, of the physical movement, of the thinking opportunity, of the hormonal kick-ins for those who are physically unable to "walk." I guess he wasn't required to present that...but I felt it was an oversight that excluded a large portion of the population from learning or benefitting from the research he presented. I do not dismiss them in my thinking about what I "get" from walking that I wish for there to be means for those unable to physically walk to also and otherwise gain. And I think I expected him to consider that.
Otherwise this book does a lot of what I do see as confirmation and affirmation of the fact that walking is good for me, good for us.
I did appreciate and enjoy O'Mara's many references to those who preceded us, thinkers and poets and writers I admire, Kierkegard and Thoreau and Wordsworth and Steinbeck, as some, and what they'd said about walking and its importance and value in their own lives.
And maybe a non-walker will find motivation and inspiration in this book to get up and get moving, to see what they have not and consider its value and merit as spoken by someone else, an expert of the learning at least, who is telling them all the ways in which that would be good for them. But it feels like it might to them, as it does to my teenaged daughter when this mom says, "Come on! Go for a walk with me" like O'Mara is asking them to first read his book and then be more compelled to get up and move. I'm not sure that works!
But...do just walk if you are able. It does do one's body and mind and spirit SO MUCH GOOD! O'Mara says so, too!
I saw a reference to this book and O'Mara's ideas somewhere else earlier this year (I no longer remember where/when, exactly) and was prompted to order and then read the book.
I have tried to figure out also what compelled me to read it, as I am an avid walker and have long been, and while I have gotten out of the habit at times, either due to season--am I a fair weather walker? Maybe--or other demands, I still understand completely all of the ways in which I feel better about life when I do, daily, walk, and occasionally--say on weekends--for even longer. I feel better in body, mind, and spirit...and so keep up that habit as best I can.
That said, I'm not certain what I wanted from this book. Confirmation of what I already knew? Directions for improvement? A magical formula of the right amount for my "person" per day to epitomize all of the valuable effects? Recommendations for the right outerwear for walking through a Wisconsin winter? What? I'm really not sure. But I didn't really get any of those answered or addressed in satisfying form.
I found that I was not actually all that interested in the scientific explanations O'Mara provided for, say, our evolution into a walking species--a number of reasons--including the ability to move things, then, from place A to place B with our hands (vs. crawling on four "legs"). But I'm still thinking about that now, to be honest...and how valuable it is that "someone" figured that out and that we all now, as humans, just do it...quite naturally.
Although to that same issue, as much time (the entire book) as O'Mara devotes to the value of and importance of walking (in all the ways I already knew), he never provided satisfactory option for any (and there are many) who are missing limbs and/or wheelchair-bound and how they are to gain the same valued mechanical movement--how to trigger all of the same scientific benefits, of the physical movement, of the thinking opportunity, of the hormonal kick-ins for those who are physically unable to "walk." I guess he wasn't required to present that...but I felt it was an oversight that excluded a large portion of the population from learning or benefitting from the research he presented. I do not dismiss them in my thinking about what I "get" from walking that I wish for there to be means for those unable to physically walk to also and otherwise gain. And I think I expected him to consider that.
Otherwise this book does a lot of what I do see as confirmation and affirmation of the fact that walking is good for me, good for us.
I did appreciate and enjoy O'Mara's many references to those who preceded us, thinkers and poets and writers I admire, Kierkegard and Thoreau and Wordsworth and Steinbeck, as some, and what they'd said about walking and its importance and value in their own lives.
And maybe a non-walker will find motivation and inspiration in this book to get up and get moving, to see what they have not and consider its value and merit as spoken by someone else, an expert of the learning at least, who is telling them all the ways in which that would be good for them. But it feels like it might to them, as it does to my teenaged daughter when this mom says, "Come on! Go for a walk with me" like O'Mara is asking them to first read his book and then be more compelled to get up and move. I'm not sure that works!
But...do just walk if you are able. It does do one's body and mind and spirit SO MUCH GOOD! O'Mara says so, too!