ABSTRACT
Walking has four major characteristic features. First, it has to be a long-term and long-distance activity. Second, it must have an aim. Third, as basically implied in analogy to Marcel Mauss's gift relations, this aim cannot be 'utilitarian' in any sense: walking does not have an economic, military or political aim; it has no interest, no profit, no surplus; it involves no exchangeability or convertibility. Finally, in spite of having an aim, the travel, the road, the time spent walking matters: it is not merely a 'means' to reach the end, but is very much part of the entire endeavour. The central feature of contentment substance is its reality. Walking only condenses the experience of contentment. Walking requires and renders possible an effort, lasting for hundreds of kilometres, during which tiredness and contentment fill the in-betweenness, where even the possibility of encountering the void is not ruled out as an experiential basis for goodness.
