Solitary Bird

Walking may be the closest thing to the universal human activity, but every walker, like every footprint, is unique. Some people saunter and wander and ramble. Others plod along, blocking the path for those trying to power ahead. Many just proceed onward in their own sweet way, one foot pursuing the other, indifferent to the pedestrian fact that they are doing something worth pondering.

Yes, we can over-think these things. Not every moment needs to be mindful, particularly if your contemplation budget is already fully allocated to slow eating and meditative sipping and in-the-moment gratitude and Tantric whatever. Socrates taught in the streets, and Aristotle was the original peripatetic, but you’d never catch them carrying on about orthotics or ruminating on gait analysis. Perhaps walking is best left alone — an unexamined act that is simply the un‑fancy, ground-level consequence of living and breathing.

Not to go all Forrest Gump in the presence of an...