Oh lurking collective wisdom…Someone explain to me when I go walking around a nearby lake why I am the only person walking clockwise. Everyone else day in and day out walks counter clockwise.
I mean…what are the odds?
pastorkeith
It’s somewhat intuitive to do circular walking in a counter-clockwise fashion, I guess. I always speculated that in symbolical terms, in tribal dances, the heart is to the center.
yer not left handed are ya?
right handed people are stronger on their right side, it is easier to go counter clockwise.
NTAC (not that anyone cares) this is a major training issue with the horses…getting them to be able to go clockwise as well as they go counter
I was going to ask if you could see around the whole lake, otherwise how would you know you were the only one walking clockwise. The only people you’d come upon would be those walking in the direction opposite to you
but then I recalled that in a park by my house (that has no lake but does have a circular path) I’ve notice folks tend to walk, ride their bikes, and inline skate that circular path widdershins.
It’s the same at our neighborhood lake. I suspect it’s cultural and conventional. At least in the US, horse racing, auto racing, track and field racing, traffic circles/roundabouts, carousels, even board games like Monopoly all condition us to CCW. And maybe there’s a writing-conditioned left-to-right bias viewed from outside. Of course, these examples just defer the ultimate explanation back a step.
The question isn’t “What are the odds?”. The question is “Why are you odd?”. I’m not sure we really want to know! 
When I’m walking in the woods, I like to go around clockwise - deosil. Recently I took my son, who has been ill, and because we arrived at a different entrance, we went around widdershins. It felt wrong. I seek for balance, but I like to follow the sun’s path. 
Monopoly’s clockwise… Parcheesi is counterclockwise.
Oops, you’re right. Shows you how long it’s been since I last played. Or maybe I always did it backwards!
Widdershins and deosil (deiseal?) … By cracky, one learns something new every day. 
I think you might have been interpreting “go directly to jail, do not pass Go” the wrong way.
I have several hikes/walks that I like to take and usually do them in one direction (not necessarily clockwise or anti). Once in a while I do them in the opposite direction and it’s an entirely different experience.
Could it be that we are conditioned by our roadways? i.e. in NA we drive in the right-hand lane and prefer walk in a counter-clockwise. In England they drive in the left-hand lane and IB notes he feels more comfortable walking in a clockwise direction.
djm
I have often thought about this subject, as I am one of the people who always walk in a counter-clockwise direction. I am not comfortable doing it the other way. If I remember correctly, we had a topic about this previously here. Personally, I think that it has something to do with the earth’s rotation. For example, the Coriolis force 'is an apparent force that as a result of the earth’s rotation deflects moving objects (as projectiles or air currents) to the right in the northern hemisphere in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere". I am not sure whether any of the aforementioned conventions are altered in the southern hemisphere, although I doubt that the monopoly board will change. On the other hand, animals may prefer to circle clockwise in the southern hemisphere.
You just don’t pass many people going clockwise, because they are going the
same direction. Try going CCW one day and you’ll notice people going CW.
I try to alternate directions because that’s how I was taught in running classes
to keep from overstrengthening one side of my body (this really only applies
to small diameter tracks, but it’s habit), and I see plenty of people going both
directions around the lakes here…
Two things:
(1) I AM left-handed.
(2) I can see around the entire lake (it’s more of a small pond to collect run off water, I think) and no one and I mean no one else is walking clock-wise.
Anyone from the southern hemisphere want to chime in
pastorkeith
I guess some secrets are meant to be kept - I used to walk into parked cars as a child - maybe you are onto something there…
pastorkeith
Track races are counter-clockwise – running tracks, NASCAR. OTOH, when they’re open to the public, 1/4 mile-400m tracks switch direction daily so that everyone doesn’t wind up with a stronger right leg.
I run on a 1.5-mile trail in the woods. I switch directions daily, and tend to pass the same people in the same direction every day. Of the three I know pretty well, the two who run CW are lefties and the one who walks CCW is a rightie.
Hmm… When I walk around the building at work, I walk around it clockwise - and I am right handed. To me, it just seems natural to go left first since we read left to right, and not right to left. Our mind processes left as first, and right as last (at least those that read left-right).
It probably has to do with how we drive on the right side around here. And if it’s a small enough lake, it’s probably like a track and those are always run counterclockwise.
When I went to Nepal you had to take care to always pass people, temples or mani stone piles on the left when you were walking. This was so your nasty hand wouldn’t touch anything sacred.
It has a religious quality here too. Clockwise is “the sun’s path” - in other words, you are being consistent with natural forces and rhythms if you proceed clockwise or deosil.
When Pagans cast a circle they all do it clockwise. Opinions do differ on closing the circle, but that doesn’t have the same importance.
ah ha!
It’s the Pagans’ fault there’s so many right handed people!