Tennis, with which I have a little experience, demands extreme concentration. On the opponent, on the ball, on what one is about to do next. And next. And perhaps, next. No player who could not concentrate has ever been good at the game. Such is the focus it demands that it leaves little room for anything else. Presumably the same applies to football, soccer, basketball, and every kind of similar sport that demands strategy and/or teamwork.

Running does not require that sort of concentration. In my experience it can be very relaxing. Once one has got into one’s stride, to feel one’s body functioning like a machine, floating through the air as it were, is to come as near to heaven as any ordinary person can be. There are, however, two problems. One is that running is easily carried to the point where one’s lungs are close to bursting. No better way to each one what determination is; however, such is the effort required as to make thought almost impossible. The other is that it may very well end up by ruining one’s knees. Especially if you run on hard surfaces, as most people do. And especially if you are no longer so young. Having done it for thirty-five years, I came close to that point. Thus I know what I am talking about in this respect.

Many people I know have taken up membership in a fitness club. I can understand their motives. Not everyone has the good fortune of living relatively close to nature as I do. In fact most of us live in megacities with all their congestion, all their traffic, and all their pollution. Fitness clubs enable one to work every muscle in one’s body in what is usually a safe and clean environment. For those who are inclined in this direction they present many opportunities for socializing as well.

To me, though, the machines always look like a cross between torture engines and gynecological chairs. I can think of nothing more boring, more humiliating even, than spending my time in a room huffing and puffing away on them. So monotonous, so dumb! Besides, back in Israel I have a lady acquaintance who runs a clinic with a staff consisting of several trained physiotherapists. She always says that she is very happy with the nearby gym, given that it presents her with a never-ending supply of patients.

I am not going to list all the remaining sport forms, their advantages and their disadvantages. Instead I am going to focus on walking, the most natural activity in the world. The Greek philosophers did it, going round and round (“going round” is what the term “peripatetic” means). Thomas Hobbes did it. Frederick the Great did it. He used to complain that, he more he got to know about men, the more he preferred walking with his dogs! Immanuel Kant did it. Friedrich Nietzsche did it, talking to himself and writing down his thoughts on little scraps of paper. So do millions of other people. Day by day, hour by day.

I mean walking as form of exercise, not of the kind one does at home or in the office. Ordinary walking, not “speed walking,” one of the strangest forms of locomotion ever invented. And walking without music being pumped through one’s head as, nowadays, it so often is. Simply walking.

Such walking has the great advantage that it can be done almost anywhere. Either alone or in the company of others; as to the nature of those others, a dog will do as well as any human. For those of you who care about such matters, walking is also the least costly of all forms of exercise. All one needs is a pair of good shoes.

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It was during a walk here in Potsdam that I thought of writing about walking. It was a beautiful evening of a long summer day. I left our lodgings, turned right, and walked about one and a half miles to the Autobahn. Then I turned around and walked back the way I had come. The whole thing took about 45 minutes. Fast enough to require a little effort by someone of my age. Not so fast as to leave one out of breath or tired.

Both sides of the road are lined by trees. On both sides there are also beautiful gardens, many with flowers. Inside many gardens there are single family houses. Not posh ones—this is a lower middle class neighborhood whose population consists of mostly of retired people. But such as are carefully maintained and clearly beloved by their owners.

It was fairly late and there were few people on the bicycle path besides the road. On the way I was greeted by a couple of small white schnauzers behind a garden gate. They started by barking at me but took only a moment to calm down and become quite friendly. One even permitted me to stroke its head.

Another attraction was a used car lot. Those on display, mostly Opels, looked tadeloss (perfect, in German). The details of each were printed on a card that was displayed in the window. The year they were made, the technical specifications, the price. Not a big deal. But interesting enough, I thought, to spend a couple of minutes comparing and calculating.

Walking, walking. Thinking of everything and of nothing. Funny: it is often when one is thinking about nothing that the best ideas come to one. From everywhere, from nowhere, from God knows where. As, for example, happened to James Watt. He always said that the idea as to how to improve the Newcomen atmospheric engine came to him one Sunday in May 1765 during a walk on Edinburgh Common. That idea made him famous as well as rich.

Trust no thought that was not born in the free air, said Nietzsche. In the age when most people spend endless hours in artificially-lightened, air-conditioned offices in front of computer screens that never seem to go out, is anyone listening?