Matter

The millennial-driven fitness industry often positions exercise as a kind of second job, in which we should “optimize” our workouts and forever strive to go faster and harder while meticulously tracking the results.

But there’s a darker, more menacing side to the preoccupation with fitness, and this is the widespread suspicion that if you can’t control your own body, you’re not fit, in any sense, to control anyone else, and in their work lives that is a large part of what typical gym-goers do.

Okay, so exercise is paradoxical: salubrious but abnormal, intrinsically free but highly commodified, a source of pleasure and health but a cause of discomfort, guilt, and opprobrium. Why did this realization motivate me to write this book? And why might you wish to read it?

The human animal now lives in a strange and unfamiliar world. Our bodies, sculpted by millions of years of evolution, are not just ancient. They are prehistorical. Our anatomy, physiology, and psychology are adapted to life in a wild, outdoor environment. At our core, we are hunters and gatherers, primed for life in natural habitat. But today we’re

These days it is possible to live particularly disembodied existences, enabled by environments and transportation so comfortable you can wear flip-flops in New England all winter long if you want to. My hope is that the quest every day for a good photo causes you to be outdoors and on foot more. On foot it is impossible to remain out of touch.