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I am not a very deep thinker, but I know that walking a Camino is an enormously important part of my life. People always ask me why, they think I am not happy if I always have to escape to the Camino, wonder if my family life is rotten, etc etc. I have a hard time explaining.
Well, today driving to O´Hare airport, listening to the radio, I heard part of a TED talk about joy. Joy is not the same as happiness, I learned, and as I listened to the speaker describe joy and how important it is to human thriving, I realized that the Camino is that for me. Nothing fancy, just a steady stream of simple glorious moments.
https://www.ted.com/talks/ingrid_fetell_lee_where_joy_hides_and_how_to_find_it?language=en
I am not a very deep thinker, but I know that walking a Camino is an enormously important part of my life. People always ask me why, they think I am not happy if I always have to escape to the Camino, wonder if my family life is rotten, etc etc. I have a hard time explaining....
Long may it be so that such simple joy continues...
On every camino there are stretches which seem to be in another world. Past are the hoards of camera-clicking tourists and/or pilgrims as well as any urbane atmosphere with a bar at every corner. All is reduced to simple basics; I am alone on a seemingly endless gravel path beneath the vast dome of an immense sky. The only sound is the companionable crunch of my boots and perhaps distant birdsong.
Happily for me while tramping along and alone I often sense that special moment when everything 'clicks' realizing that this is, indeed, MY way and that all is and will be good. ...Perhaps such secular transcendence felt while walking might be akin to what runners call 'the zone'. Your body can handle the task while your spirit glows with the effort. Neither easy, nor impossible; all simply is. ...Thus, thankfully you continue.
MM
"Quiet contentment"...well said.Exactly.
Joy is something that I often feel walking out into a new day on the Camino - with everything I need on my back and no set end in sight. And along the way even if experience in the moment is difficult or painful there can be an underlying quiet contentment at the same time - which is more how I feel joy than jumping up and down clapping.
Just...ahhhhh....
Youtube id: lhhhWlNyRuA
Not knowing what each of us thinks "joy" is, I would do it for a lot of other reasons!If it brought me no joy, I would not do it.
Yes. But if it brought NO joy, I don't think I'd be doing it every year.Not knowing what each of us thinks "joy" is, I would do it for a lot of other reasons!
Yes. Lovely, @Kanga .A lark internalised, singing and soaring.
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