Reflections

At the station at St Jean the morning after Roncevaux, heading home

The Chemin takes you out of the cycle of everyday life – your family, your work, your social circle. It replaces this with an experience that provides for plenty of space for reflection. This isn’t quite linear and conscious – each hour adding the same percentage to one’s growth in knowledge or wisdom. Instead, you focus on the task at hand which is usually reaching B from A, receive the sensory influences like the views or the food, and converse with a wide range of people you don’t normally meet or know. These things occur with far less distraction than in everyday life, and are therefore more pronounced experientially. And it is the subconsciously-percolating thoughts that then seem to bubble up at surprising moments: on waking, in pausing, in dreaming, triggered by a vista or a companion’s comment; and most usually for me, in bed after dinner but before sleep.

The natural state of being for humans is to live in a community (a family, a tribe, a village); to be active (hunting and gathering, later farming and warring); to be in nature; and to juggle but one ball at a time (catch that mammoth; sow this field). The Chemin is formed of a community of pilgrims, is by definition centred on physical activity in the great outdoors, and consists of a single daily goal of reaching one’s destination in reasonable shape: it’s therefore a modern microcosm of the historical natural state of humans.

I’ve no nostalgia for days of yore when life was the Hobbesian “nasty, brutish and short” (and had an expectancy of 40 years). I believe modern progress is overwhelmingly a good thing. I dislike people saying things were better in the old days, in that way some typically semi-hippy types say, ignoring the fact that their car, their phone, their expected 80 year lifespan, and indeed almost their entire lifestyle can be attributed to the progress made in the last few hundred years of democracy and capitalism (and the defeat of their favourite philosophy, socialism).

But let me observe that we are now more isolated (especially post-lockdowns with the love of lazy working from home); much less active; indoors or in cities; and inundated with hundreds of influences and responsibilities simultaneously. This is not the natural human condition.

The Chemin gives an opportunity to live this more “natural” state of being for a period of time, sandwiched into the “modern” condition of abstracted roles in complex society centred in cities. Is it better?

Well, certain aspects of it are definitely better. To do more exercise, and to be in nature, are things that I wish to bring more of into my life, and that I would wish were more prevalent in society as a whole. This is obvious, of course, but I suppose the point is priorities. We must make time for these things, as well as for the other things about our natural condition that are beneficial: more meaningful human interaction, more focus on fundamentally important things and less on pointless trivialities.

Modern society places huge demands on our time. Subscribe to this, log in to that, deal with this piece of hideous bureaucracy, work this hard in your career to get to this place or that level. The thing about the Chemin, in the way they say on your deathbed you never wish you worked harder, is that it gives you the perspective to think about the compromises you make for such time commitments.

I’ve never been a control freak, I always like it when other people take responsibility for getting stuff done; but I’m planning to be even more focused on this, for time is even more important to me now than it was before.

Is this to seek pleasure and leisure time? No it isn’t, not for me. I’m more Protestant (in a secular way) than hedonistic (in the philosophical sense). The famous Protestant work ethic is characterised by taking one’s responsibilities seriously. Philosophical hedonism holds that pleasure and displeasure are, or should be, the primary drivers of one’s actions. I have a lifelong pattern of seeking pleasure only when I don’t have overhang responsibilities from the likes of work, studying or family. I always prioritise being dependable, useful and successful above “having fun”, even though others may not notice this because they see me only when I’m having fun.

So I want more time to continue being useful. In my case, this would be using my talents to bring happiness or education or insight to other people.

And this is another area where the Chemin causes much reflection. What is the purpose of one’s life? I thought a great deal about my father, who died about 6 months before I set off. He was a big influence on me, not particularly as a wise old counsellor but rather as my close genetic precursor (we are very similar, mentally) and for the simplicity of what made him happy. He was a man for whom family, particularly his wife, my mum, and his children, were everything. They were the beginning and end of what was important in his life (with the small exception of his passion for bridge). He died a happy man, and said so many times in the final months, because he had a happy family and had lived a happy life with them.

I’m a more complex character than him, I think. I have a certain drive to learn, to develop, to build, to influence, to succeed by society’s terms (perhaps simply to prove that I can). Does this make me less prone to happiness? Maybe – it’s the nature of people like me once something has been achieved to move immediately to the next challenge. More “fleeting satisfaction” than deep happiness. But I am happy when I’m striving. And this striving is a combination of getting big stuff done and deploying creativity. These things cannot be done when tasks and mundanities are getting in the way. I must clear these from my life, to make time and space to do what I do best.

I also thought about my dog Axel, who (with our other dog) joined Cat and me for the Le-Puy-to-Moissac walking we did 2017-2019. He died just two months before I set off, and I miss him terribly for he was my boy. Axel would be happy just by being with Cat and me, provided he was fed and watered. The simplicity of a dog’s life always amazes me: no shoes or clothes, no hang ups or toilet paper, no two-timing or backstabbing or scheming. I thought about him particularly when I was grinding my way along the Voie Verte from Condom to Éauze, for he’d have been fine and I was suffering through sensory deprivation.

And so what I thought about with Axel was about some of the things that make us different from the animals. Beauty and art, aesthetic and intellectual stimulation: these hold no place in a dog’s hierarchy of needs. Yet I now believe these are more than just the luxuries of modern human plenty. Sure, there was almost no leisure time for almost all humans for thousands of years of our history. But we can certainly imagine a hunter with a spear 20,000 years ago stopping on a ridge and breathing in the view, or an Egyptian slave dragging a huge stone to the pyramidical site having his eye turned by a pretty slave girl. And when the day was dark and the work done, the conversing round a fire with stories (true or fictional) captivating the imagination of a family or a tribe.

The Chemin renders these stimulations starker than in everyday modern life, more pronounced, and somehow more needed. The grind of the Voie Verte brought this home to me. Walks of similar distance, even with great climatic drama (wind and rain), were challenges, sure, but they were still fun with a great sense of achievement at the end. I felt nothing but relief to be able to see more than close-hemmed trees at the end of the Voie Verte. And to be able, finally, to talk to someone.

There is a physical response to aesthetic and intellectual stimulation that probably derives from the emotional (which in turn is stimulated by the senses) – I never knew of this before. That walk tired me and drained me more than any other, even though it was level and even all the way through.

The rest of the Chemin was full, just chock-full, of stimulations. You’d be talking to someone and learning a good deal about them and from them; or you’d be turning a corner to an incredible view; or you’d see a town from a distance and wonder what it’s like (and gradually discover more as you got closer); or you’d be experiencing wonderful food and wine; or you’d look at people living a life very different from your own and ponder how their quotidian existence compares to yours. And this, presumably, is why 8 hours of a repetitive task (putting one foot in front of the other) simply didn’t feel boring, except on that Voie Verte and to a lesser degree the canal walk after Moissac. My mind numbed on the Voie Verte, its usual creative sparks giving way to dull, gradgrindian repetition.

We need creativity in art, writing, conversation, intellectual pursuits. We need these in our lives, for our lives are arid otherwise. A person alone, even those of us with introverted personalities, cannot be creative without stimulation and influences. The stimulations and influences come from beautiful things, the appreciation of others’ creations and creativity, and the sparking of spontaneous interplay of ideas with fellow humans. This creativity is the essence of the human condition. It’s what makes us human. It is what drove us to pick up stones and make tools out of them. Something in humans is creative, and the entire civilisational edifice that we inhabit comes from this. Dogs and goldfish don’t respond to aesthetic stimulation like we do, and they haven’t built civilisations.

And so, see great views, please. Absorb them and let them tantalise your eyes. Be in nature, appreciate the range of influences you see and marvel at the variety of life. Talk to people. Talk a lot to people, about more than trivial things. Read. Read novels, read good columnists, read history and biography, read philosophy. Listen to, and make, music. Try to be creative in your job, and stop thinking of it as a series of tasks – try to question what it’s really worth, and try to enhance that. Eat well, and take time to eat well. Enjoy wine. Go to museums and art galleries, and plays and concerts and other cultural events. Write books, blogs, poems – express creativity!

Without these things, in a purely utilitarian existence, life is diminished. The physical response I refer to from the influence of beauty and intellectual sparking, that inspires creativity, is happiness and energy. An extra spring in your step, and a desire to do more and achieve more. I have resolved in my personal life to make more room for nature, learning and beauty, and to foster my creativity. And I would wish that society afforded more space for creativity and beauty in our lives: I greatly admire America, for instance, but they’ve somehow parlayed a foundational spirit of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” into the American Dream where you can achieve anything with hard work. I fear the more refined aspects of life sometimes fall through the cracks, are sometimes left in the wake of this hard work.

So if I consider the two themes above that the Chemin inspired in me – time to pursue usefulness, and aesthetic and intellectual stimulation – it makes me reflect on capitalism. This, along with democracy, is the most important and powerful intangible human invention of all time. It has shaped our world immeasurably for the better – the power of American economic success ensured we beat the Nazis and the Communists. But the relentlessness of its focus on efficiency and margin does have a cost, and that cost is breathing space for the finer things in life. We can surely, surely, have successful economies without dehumanising ourselves (eh, America, with your ghastly office cubicles removing the joy of spontaneous conversation)? Surely some more funding and attention in such wealth-generating societies can be directed to art and music, to beautiful outdoor spaces, and to pursuits and activities that bring people together after the fracturing and isolating effects of the pandemic lockdowns facilitated by modern technology.

And at the individual level, it is up to the participants in modern society to seek beauty and aesthetic stimulation, to explore their intellectual curiosity, and above all to make sure they have the time for these things for they are the most important things in life. The Chemin taught me this.

My shoes were new when I started the walk

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