I was walking through pain, and pain only.
With each step, feeling my legs getting more and more closer to falling off.
I walked through pain in the fields and meadows, in the forests and jungles, climbed hills and mountains.
And you know what?
What comes after pain?
There are three stages of being in pain:
Ache. Burning senses in your body exploding everywhere it hurts. Insufferably. Seems like there’s nothing left but pain and agony, and it feels like it’s never going to end. Even if your conscious mind understands that it’s temporary, the moment lasts an eternity. Time stops.
Then you’re in so much ache that you get angry. Anger comes to your body. It fills every gap that had senses of pain. What was painful now becomes filled with rage and anger. You either become violent with yourself or/and others, or you close yourself inside your body and experience the rage inside.
After a while comes exhaustion. But not the exhaustion that prevents you from moving—you still move, you never stopped - yet your mind becomes so empty, exhausted, and clear. Every second becomes light and sterile from anything because you stop sensing things that once prevented you from this state. And you become an observer. You become objective.
And to get through these states I mustn’t stop moving. Never. It doesn’t have to be rushing anywhere, but once you stop and let your body rest, the process restarts itself, and it might become a never-ending loop.
Why should one exhaust their body to such a state?
Everyone should do things that make them change and feel new things, experiences. That’s the meaning of all. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be walking hundreds of kilometres. Such journeys are extreme, and only a few find meaning in this. To me, I take it as an inevitable way of experiencing life—walking. You can’t suddenly leave the place you’re at, you can’t stay for long as well, because you need to recharge your sources of energy. Time becomes slow and you stop rushing anywhere. You go through such pain stages and your mind becomes clear, you can spend days in silence, talking with people stops feeling exhausting, you become your own leader—no one depends on you and you don’t depend on anyone besides your own self. That’s why I love walking. I never get bored, lonely, or dreaded. The moment I take things as an inevitable destiny, all the things that are meaningless leave my body and my mind, and peace takes its place. Only the present remains.