Gollum

On Maslow's Hierarchy, the Animal Kingdom, REI and mega landscapes. An excerpt from "Finisterre," my account of walking a thousand miles from my home in France to the western coast of Spain.

Photo by Viktor Smoliak on Unsplash

A brief excerpt from “Finisterre,” an account of walking the Camino de Santiago. I’m fifty kilometers past Toulouse, it’s been raining all morning, and I’m learning something fundamental about the elements.

Imagine the pastoral stock photo above, but it’s a downpour and there are no trees and no friendly path and you’re running a fever. Anyway, it’s sort of flat like in the picture.

The link to the full chapter and the full account is at bottom.

“A Maslow’s observation: out in the elements, there is nowhere to eat without getting drenched. I have the uncanny, “never-noticed-it-before” realization of how scarce roof-over-your-head shelter can be. There isn’t that much shelter in nature come to think of it.

For the first time in my life, it bothers me that animals limp and wander about in the rain with matted fur, exposed to the elements, never even being able to complain or make a feel-sorry-for-me face so other animals might feel bad and help them out.