The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Maira Kalman on Walking as a Creative Device and the Difference Between Thinking and Feeling

Last week, Maira Kalmanartist extraordinaire, prolific author, unequaled visual storyteller — shared some poignant, beautifully human thoughts on existence and happiness. From the same interview series comes Kalman’s equally wonderful meditation on the difference between thinking and feeling, touching on Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Anne Lamott’s insights on rationality vs. intuition, and the power of walking as a generative force of intellect, awareness, and creativity:

I walk everywhere in the city. Any city. You see everything you need to see for a lifetime. Every emotion. Every condition. Every fashion. Every glory.

Kalman’s proclivity for walking and movement as a gateway to a higher sensibility is something a number of great creators have in common. Dickens and Hugo were avid walkers during ideation; Burns often composed while “holding the plough”; Twain paced madly while dictating; Goethe and Scott composed on horseback; Mozart preferred the back of a carriage; Lord Kelvin worked on his mathematical studies while traveling by train. Drawing on these anecdotes, Rosamund E. Harding suggests in the 1932 gem An Anatomy of Inspiration:

It is possible that the rhythmical movement of a carriage or train, of a horse and to a much lesser degree of walking, may produce on sensitive minds a slightly hypnotic effect conducive to that state of mind most favourable to the birth of ideas.

Here are some of the drawings that make cameos in the video. From The Principles of Uncertainty:

From Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World):


Published July 30, 2012

https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/07/30/maira-kalman-thinking-feeling-interview/

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