“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” - William Blake I certainly do hope so 😅

DAY 1 St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port -> Roncesvalles [24,78 km -> 7:24 hrs] "Whatever the circumstances, whatever the hardships, the only thing that gets you to a better place is taking the next step, so just TAKE IT." Green as grass, and full of enthusiasm, I start my journey like hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year, in St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. A small, medieval, French town near the Spanish border where you can get your Pilgrim’s Passport and a scallop shell to put on your backpack. The first day is also one of the most challenging since you have to ascend about 1200m. The start is nice and slow, but soon enough the steep ascent starts. It’s long, it’s steady and my backpack is very needlessly heavy. Throughout the Camino, I either threw out or sent home 6 kilograms of stuff I did not need, yet was carrying on this first day. Hours and hours of pumping myself up, calling on the ancestors to give me a boost of energy, and wondering “What am I doing here?”. Near the end, it started raining, I was tired beyond my imagination, yet the only thing to do was to take the next step. I couldn’t stop in the middle of the forest, I couldn’t call a taxi, and I had no other recourse other than to take the next step. It is a funny situation, all you want to do is to stop and have some comfort, dry clothes, and warmth, yet the only way to get there is to endure more of the discomfort, pain, and dreary weather. The only thing that gets closer to the desired state is taking the next hurtful step. And that was the very first lesson the Camino taught me: "Whatever the circumstances, whatever the hardships, the only thing that gets you to a better place is taking the next step, so just TAKE IT."

CAMINO DE SANTIAGO A historic pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, attracting travelers seeking spiritual, cultural, or personal fulfillment. I just finished it and over the next month, I wish to share with you the stories, the landscapes, and the teachings I received. I chose the Camino Francés which starts in French Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and goes across Spain for 780km. It’s probably the most difficult thing I have done in my life and I’m still recovering from it. Something tells me I might never recover. And maybe that was the whole point. To leave something that no longer serves you behind. But first, let me share the absurd journey of discoveries and decisions that led me to embark on this arduous journey in the dead of winter. I AM NOT IN CONTROL, I AM BEING LIVED This means letting life live through you, rather than thinking you have it all figured out. It means listening to the signs around you and following your intuitions while at times sacrificing your rationality knowing that if you let life lead the way, things will always turn out for the best. It might be a wild ride, but in the end, you will not regret it. And that’s how I’ve found myself living in Madeira in the second half of 2024. The whole Madeiran experience is a story in itself but here I want to talk about the signs and intuitions that led me to the Camino. On a beautiful sunny morning in Ponta do Sol, I went to my local coffee shop to have my daily dose of orange juice. As I’m sitting there, enjoying the sun, a lonely tourist comes along, and while having his coffee, he smiles at me and says hello. I had never seen the guy but as I’m already well versed in signs and intuitions I know I have to go talk to him. If you make prolonged eye contact with someone, they even smile, or say hello, that means they have some piece of information you need to progress on your life’s journey. So I walk over and strike up a conversation. It’s not particularly interesting or exciting and I’m losing patience because I know he has something for me, but I’m not getting anything. So I tell him about the above-explained principle and he goes: “Right, I experienced that while walking Camino de Santiago all the time. Every time you are looking for an answer to some question, or you are getting lost, or in other need, someone magically appears and solves your problem.” And that’s when it clicked for me. You see, just the day before I finished a Camino de Santiago step challenge on my Garmin watch and now this guy is telling me about it. And just like that, I knew what I had to do next. You see when life is telling you to do something, you can always say no. However in my experience, the more I resist life’s requests, the worse things get for me. Over time, I learned to just head first wherever life is sending me, knowing and trusting it has my best interest in mind. And that’s how a few weeks later, on 3rd of December I find myself in Saint-Jean-Pied de Port, walking towards the Pyrenees. And today, almost two months later, I decided to share this story with you. I walked 780km. It was crazy, beautiful, scary, instructive, and probably everything else you can imagine. Over the next month or so I will share a picture and a story with you every day. I hope it inspires you to whatever you need inspiring to 😉 See you tomorrow. #CaminoDeSantiago #Pilgrimage #CaminoFrances #SantiagoDeCompostela #SpiritualJourney #PersonalGrowth #TrustTheProcess #LifeLessons #AdventureAwaits #TravelStories #MadeiraIsland #Intuition #FollowTheSigns #WalkYourPath #MindfulTravel #WinterCamino #780km #SoulfulJourney #InspirationDaily #LetLifeLead

Gluttony is our most pronounced individual and collective sin. We consume so much news, social media, calories, natural resources, caffeine it's making us sick. Scale back consumption in every area of your life.

Checking Nostr after a while. It’s truly sad to see Odell’s “GM NOSTR” being at the top of last 24hrs feed. Don’t we have something more interesting to offer here?

Come with me, if you want to live!

#asknostr #relays #relaysdiscovery What is the best way to get a list of all relays and keep it up to date? Nostr watch (

nostr.watch

seems to be sundowning. If I get 10K sats on this post I will code and support a relay repository.

Levada do Rei #madeira #hiking

Your biology is your psychology. Your psychology is you destiny. FULL FUCKING STOP. Now think about it 🤔

Is “The American Spirit” a real thing or is it an immensely successful psyop?

FIAT Standard: Sales Tactics BTC Standard: Communication

Sleep is everything. Any and every change you want to make in your life has to start with quality sleep. Everything in your life will be unnecessarily more difficult if you don't get your sleep right first.

“We are in a modern day slavery disguised as economics.”- Jeff Booth

Bitcoin is going to get us to Level 1 on the Kardashev scale.