Whatever intriguing cultural differences we may have as human beings, it would appear that there are certain fundamentals that remain the same wherever you go — eating, sleeping and walking, for example.
Yet, if you think about it, even these fundamentals vary radically from place to place. Different countries have their own unique types of cuisine and use different utensils to eat them, and things such as sleep, which almost seem "culture-proof," are in fact anything but. Consider for example the Japanese habit of inemuri or "micronapping" — sometimes while standing on the train or even when sitting at the dinner table.
But walking? Surely that doesn't differ from place to place. But indeed it does. The concept of the leisurely walk or "stroll," for example, was largely a post-Enlightenment, Romantic invention, demonstrating that the person doing it was not a bound serf, but a person possessing freedom of both body and thought, who understood that walking clears the mind, reunites the body with the great outdoors and stimulates original, creative thinking.
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