"You must walk sometimes perfectly free—not prying nor inquisitive—not bent upon seeing things," wrote Henry David Thoreau in an August 1851 journal entry. "Throw away a whole day for a single expansion."
Thoreau wrote roughly two million words in his journal—what writer Damion Searls calls "a record of what he and Nature did on a given day."
But even the naturalist who recorded with incredible meticulousness the world around him saw the value of sometimes walking with no purpose. No classifying, organizing, indexing, cataloging, studying.
Just being.
“There is some advantage intellectually & spiritually," Thoreau wrote in his journal, "in taking wide views with the bodily eye & not pursuing an occupation which holds the body prone."
This, in some ways, is the harder discipline. We're so accustomed to having a goal, an outcome, or some purpose in mind that it can seem easier to pursue something with a tangible result than to walk perfectly free.
When I lived in Arizona, I often hiked and backpacked through the state's mountains and canyons. But I frequently found myself more concerned with getting to the summit or making it to the river than with the landscape I was passing through. Afterward, I'd be bummed that I didn't spend more time just being present and breathing and looking at everything I passed by.
Having a particular aim in mind changes the way you move through the world.
Even Thoreau found himself guilty of this.
"I fear that the character of my knowledge is from year to year becoming more distinct and scientific; that, in exchange for views as wide as heaven's cope, I am being narrowed down to the field of the microscope,” Thoreau wrote. “I see details, not wholes nor the shadow of the whole. I count some parts, and say, 'I know.'”
This must be a human thing. We often seem to do our best when there's something to pursue, some destination to reach or outcome to work toward. A lot of good can come from that. But it's also worth taking the time, here and there, to "throw away" a day—to do something you love simply for the enjoyment of being there.
Not for learning, for advancing, or progressing. Not for sorting the world into categories to give ourselves the feeling that we know what’s going on.
Just to be where you are. That can be enough.