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?I thought of that while riding a bike,? said Albert Einstein recalling how he discovered the theory of relativity.
Like walking, riding a bicycle sets the mind on free flow. Yet unlike walking, biking demands that one maintains balance between alertness and contemplation. Your eyes need to scan the road for potholes or approaching vehicles but your mind also wanders elsewhere.
The latter is more difficult to do when one is behind the wheel. Driving a faster and more massive machine, we become conscious of the possibility of homicide if we yield to daydreaming, which in legal terms mean reckless imprudence.
But with a bicycle, the only danger is either getting an inattentive pedestrian bruised, being chased by a rabid dog, or getting thrown into a ditch.
There must be a direct connection between footwork and mind work. In this case, even dance can be considered thought set in motion. The philosopher, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, must follow the steps of the dancer.
Dance, indeed, is an important expression of wisdom in Eastern thought. In the footwork of tai chi and martial arts, one aspires to reflect the order and harmony of the cosmos.
Aside from looking for a wife, one of the first things that my Canadian philosophy professor did when he came to Cebu was to enroll in ballroom dancing. ?Dance,? he said, ?is the ultimate deconstruction.?
There must also be a link between slow travel and the speed and boundlessness of imagination. It is when we travel slowly that the mind is able to reach farther or arrive at a conclusion. Which also explains why the more serious the discussion, the more likely we take our companions for a walk. Or a bicycle tour, as my newpaper friends and I have long been planning to take.
Like Einstein, the philosopher Immanuel Kant was famous for his rigid walking routines in his small hometown in Germany. It must be in these walks that Kant attempted to solve the problem of relativity, though in a much different sense than that of Einstein?s.
In his essay ?Walking,? Henry David Thoreau advised that people spend at least four hours a day ?sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absoutely free from all wordly engagements. You may safely say a penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them ? as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon ? I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.?
I wonder how many more eureka moments occurred to people while they were walking or biking. Is there a connection between how we travel and how we think? Can we attribute the great contributions to civilization of the Europeans, the Chinese, and the Japanese to their walking or biking culture?
While riding a bike to the market this morning, I try to think of writing a column about how our habits as consumers and commuters?our insistence to use plastic bags and our refusal to use public transport?may be responsible for the garbage clogging our sewage system and the rapid urban sprawl that turn parks into pools of cars and forests into golf courses or subdivisions.
Yet I end up writing about the sheer pleasure of thinking itself as one pushes pedals to wherever the mind takes.
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If you are equally idle today, I suggest you head to Ayala Center Onstage to watch the last screenings of the 12th Cineuropa Film Festival. Sponsored by the embassies of member countries of the European Union and the Arts Council of Cebu, the festival takes you on an armchair trip to Europe with a selection of contemporary films from the continent. Admission is free and you even get a raffle ticket that might win you a package tour to Europe.
Now that?s no longer just armchair travel. I?m feeling lucky and ready to fold my bike into a suitcase, just in case.
