(Originally posted on 20 August 2016)
Is this blog really necessary?
In a world where we are bombarded by information of every kind, the last thing you need is another blog on the Camino de Santiago. Even if you are interested in the subject, you already have more books, guides, forums, videos, maps and movies than you can possibly read or watch in your entire life. More than this, no one really cares about what you’re doing (well, maybe your family, just to hope you’re safe), no one wants lessons from you and no one wants to look at you smiling in the pictures when you have a deadline for the closing of a contract.
So, is all of this necessary?
You know, I have been blessed with many gifts. And one of them is a unique perspective on the world.
I realized this when I was a child, when I received the first teacher’s evaluation, when I watched friends look at me like an alien from another world, when I found solutions to complex problems and no one realized where that solution came from, etc.
Then I arrived in the crucial adolescence stage and I had a big choice in front of me: suppressing that side of my personality or developing it as much as possible, hoping that someone could identify with it, or simply find courage in me to find his own path. As everyone around me knows pretty well, I chose the latter. And I find a comfortable shelter in art, probably the best place for someone who wants to develop his own style.
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In choosing to write an honest and potentially thought-provoking blog while I am walking, I have in effect turned down so many way less consuming alternatives: I could have saved this time to rest more every day; I could have shared a simple list of places where to eat or drink, or I could have kept these memories just for me (pretty smart choice if you’re a lawyer).
I chose what appears to be the most difficult and inconvenient option because when you are capable of creating and articulating value from nothing, you have the moral duty of sharing what you see or think. Of strengthening that perspective until the last day you’re on Earth.
So yeah, it is necessary. And it was the hardest choice. Therefore - the best one.
