> If you need to listen to music while walking, don’t walk; and don’t listen to music.
I tend to never listen to music unless I'm taking a walk. I have no anxiety about idleness, but I do have an acute anxiety about others' opinions of my taste in music—it is such that I can only stand to enjoy music when there is no one close enough to me to hear it. Seeing as I live in an apartment with thin walls, this means going for a walk.
The last sentence of this comment makes no sense. Do his neighbors have such acute auditory ability that they can hear the music from his headphones -- the ones he takes on those walks -- through their walls?
There are few things more relaxing than coming home on a Friday afternoon, mixing a nice cocktail, and cranking some truly embarrassing music from your youth on the stereo, at full volume through big speakers.
To pull that off, you need thick skin or thick walls.
That was the entire point of my comment. No matter how loud you crank music on headphones, nothing will fall off the shelves, and you won't feel any bowel-loosening vibration coursing through your body.
That's an essential part of the experience. And if it's happening because of cheezy butt rock from the 80's, you'd best have thick stone walls or live well out in the country.
I like taking walks and listening to pod casts, the problem is the opposite; I'm laughing and muttering to myself as I walk along, unnerving all those elderly immigrants.
However it is a good idea to walk without ipods/mp3 players as much as you can bear, walking helps your mind wander or meditate without having to 'learn how to breathe'.
I enjoy taking good podcasts along with me on my walks because then, streets get associated with topics. The corner next to the ugly second-hand store is now all about planning the European high-voltage power grid, and the flower shop at the hospital is about self-made bicycle computers and OpenStreetMap.
> If you need to listen to music while walking, don’t walk; and don’t listen to music.
I tend to never listen to music unless I'm taking a walk. I have no anxiety about idleness, but I do have an acute anxiety about others' opinions of my taste in music—it is such that I can only stand to enjoy music when there is no one close enough to me to hear it. Seeing as I live in an apartment with thin walls, this means going for a walk.