On the treadmill: What are you thinking?

I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.—Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In his new book, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert MacFarlane introduces his travels with the idea that thought and motion have been tied together in the minds of many a famous thinker. He cites Nietzcshe, and Wordsworth, as well as Rousseau, among others.

Having been tethered to the treadmill while recovering from a cold, I think it’s worth qualifying that the walk or run needs to be “real” if it’s going to move one’s mind in any kind of new direction.

Treadmills are great technology, but they insulate you from nature, and thus much original thought, it seems. On the treadmill you’re on technological life support. You’re indoors, you read, you watch TV, you stare at pulsating monitors. You don't think much.

Boredom on the treadmill is explained by our evolutionary history, says psychologist Hank Davis in a Runner’s World article, "The Caveman in the Gym." When we’re on the treadmill, we’re “missing hundreds of thousands of years of physical and mental expectations,” he says, which include, of course, chasing down a meal or avoiding becoming something’s meal. Running for fun and exercise is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of the species.

Thanks to treadmills we can transcend nature and get in a workout when we are boxed in by circumstances of weather, time and health. But it’s just not the same. The world of thought awaits outdoors.