What I Think About When I Walk with Bess
Ponderings of a Curious Mind
This book is currently in edit and will be released when complete.
This book began, quite literally, on a lead.
Every day, I walk with Bess. Not power walks. Not productivity walks. Just the ordinary kind, through parks, streets, and familiar routes that change subtly with weather, light, and mood. The rhythm of her steps sets the pace of my thoughts. She stops. I wait. She investigates a scent. I look around. Thinking happens in the gaps.
These essays grew out of those walks.
They are not planned. They are not solutions in search of problems. A question appears, sometimes scientific, sometimes philosophical, sometimes quietly personal. I follow it for a while, see where it leads, and let it go when it has said enough.
Thinking at Walking Speed
Walking changes how the mind works.
Thought slows down. Associations loosen. Ideas that felt urgent indoors lose their grip. Others, usually ignored, step forward. Curiosity replaces argument. Observation replaces conclusion.
What I Think About When I Walk with Bess is written in that state. It moves through questions about belief, beauty, consciousness, health, meaning, and human behaviour without trying to resolve them too quickly. Some essays end with clarity. Others end with better questions.
That is intentional.
Science, Philosophy, and the Ordinary
The essays draw freely from biology, psychology, philosophy, and everyday experience. A conversation overheard in a park might sit next to a reflection on cognitive bias. A dog’s behaviour might trigger a thought about evolution, attachment, or attention. A quiet street can open into a question about meaning or mortality.
Nothing here is abstract for its own sake. Ideas are anchored in the ordinary places where life actually happens.
Kitchens. Pavements. Benches. Mornings. Evenings.
No Instructions, No Urgency
This is not a manual. It does not promise improvement or transformation.
It offers something simpler.
Company.
The essays are meant to be read slowly, in any order, and without pressure to apply anything. You can dip in, wander off, return later. Understanding, like walking, does not always move in straight lines.
A Book About Attention
At its core, this is a book about paying attention.
To thoughts before they harden into opinions.
To moments before they disappear into routine.
To questions before they are dismissed as impractical.
Walking with a dog has a way of insisting on this kind of attention. Bess does not care about my plans. She responds to what is here. The walk unfolds one step at a time.
So does the thinking.
For the Reader
This book is for readers who enjoy reflection without instruction.
For those who like ideas grounded in real life.
For people who suspect that clarity often arrives sideways, while doing something else entirely.
If the Manuals of Life help you design a life deliberately, What I Think About When I Walk with Bess helps you notice the life already unfolding beneath your feet.
It is not about the destination.
It is about the walk.