Advertisement
Published: October 31st 2013
Beautiful Bay of Biscayne
Had to stop for this one!You know that perfectly lazy summer day spent in the garden – the wonderful weather; BBQs, salads, wine, beer, family and friends; viewed through the concertina of time our journey through Northern Spain felt just like that. A pageant of picnics, BBQs and camping, all amalgamated so completely into one, that looking back it is difficult to highlight any one particular experience. There were no traumatic events, no significant highs and no significant lows…a blissful slice of uncomplicated life in the comfort zone.
Looking at most places in the atlas I have a good idea of what the place would look like on the ground, even if I’ve never been there personally. Yet, the Bay of Biscayne has always left a big question mark hanging over my head.
This is the place Spanish people like to spend their summers escaping the heat of the south. The information I gathered said this was “Green Spain”, and more ‘like the British Isles’, owing to the fact that it rains all the time. During our time there however, we witnessed something of a climatic anomaly since it never rained once. This meant we were left with the green
and the most perfect camping climate anyone could ever wish for.
Returning from the beach one evening in San Sebastian we drove up towards our campsite situated in the hills to the west of town. An idyllic scene of pastoral farmland stretched away toward the sun setting over The Bay of Biscayne. This was one of those moments when you wish you could just stop the car and capture the moment for all posterity. And as you drive on, that image, now etched in your mind, makes you wish you had stopped the car – wait a minute – “Stop the car!”
Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia; San Sebastian, Santander, Santillana del Mar, Bilbao, Cudillero, Santiago de Compostela and Pontevedra. Everything seemed sublime; the food, the landscape, the people and the culture.
After the reverse culture shock of England and the revisit to my arch-cultural-nemesis, France, Northern Spain was a proverbial walk in the park. It was life in the comfort zone.
The Comfort Zone
In the past I lived in Denmark where I would take advantage of the high
Beach
Donastia San Sebastian wages and zero tax rates for transient workers. It was the perfect foil to my more extreme traveling days. Returning home from my forays it was very definition of the comfort zone, the perfect place for a little R&R before the next trip.
In Denmark, ‘comfort zone’ is a national obsession, wrapped neatly in a mentality they call hyggelig: the word doesn’t have an exact English translation, the closest we have is the word “cozy.” "Nu er det hyggeligt": “Now, it's cozy!” (- Upon lighting some candles and opening up a box of chocolates, while watching a movie under thick blankets).
In a harsh northern climate this Old Norse cultural expression would be imminently understandable. 21
st Century Denmark can hardly be described as harsh, though
hyggelig is cherished to this day, webbed to the national psyche.
Again and again, I would leave the comfort zone to explore corners of the world where the concept of hyggelig was largely incomprehensible, where mere survival was the order of the day for millions of people. And only after stretching that shoestring budget to its limit, roughing it on the road, I would
return to the land of Hygge. It was the ying to my yang.
These days, with two small children in tow it's almost as if my life is being lived in reverse. Whether it is conscious or unconscious; probably due to us spending more than a few months in our country of residence, we choose to live and raise our children outside of the comfort zone, in China.
I am a firm believer that the comfort zone is a place to be visited. If you stay there indefinitely your life will languish. Comfort by definition is warm, soothing, soft and easy. Staying there for too long makes us soft, and easy; everything becomes predictable, and by limiting our experience we cease to stretch our knowledge, our range of feeling, and cease to learn about ourselves.
As you step out of your comfort zone, you'll become accustomed to that state of optimal anxiety. This "productive discomfort," becomes more normal to you, allowing you to push farther before your performance falls off, allowing you to venture further and further from your comfort zone. And that is where all the excitement happens.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage”
Anais Nin
Leaving the comfort zone saw mankind populate every corner of this planet. Leaving the comfort zone saw mankind
leave this planet. It is part of who we are to learn, investigate, and explore; to risk it all venturing into the unknown.
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”
Neale Donald Walsch
Experiences that are strange and complex create uncertainty. A sensation of uncertainty is often perceived as unpleasantness. Through curiosity or learning we are in effect attempting to reduce or dispel this uncertainty. But in this day and age the strange and uncertain have largely been explained away, or so we tell ourselves. It is quite possible to live out your life inside the comfort zone surrounded by culturally created norms without ever being confronted by the strange or challenging. And when the strange or challenging encroach into that comfort zone, people tend to react with fear and anger.
However, this is all well and good with one important caveat; living outside of the comfort zone permanently becomes counter productive to the aim. This phenomenon - called
hedonistic adaptation, is
Catedral del Buen Pastor
(Buen Pastor Cathedral) the flip side: whereby the incredible and extraordinary become ordinary over time. You may have experienced a microcosm of this phenomenon traveling, wherein, for the first few days in a new country everything seems exotic and different. Of course, the ‘stranger’ or more different the culture is to your own the longer this feeling will last, until these differences eventually begin to tail off, and you cease to notice them.
I am not ashamed to admit that this feeling is a powerful drug. Not surprising when you learn that biologically our brains are wired to reward us for satisfying curiosity with a release of dopamine. That same dopamine is released when taking cocaine, or methamphetamine; which goes a long way to explaining why that Blue Meth Candy in Breaking Bad is in such high demand…traveling without moving.
Once the extraordinary becomes the ordinary it is time to return to the comfort zone to reflect and process your experience. The comfort zone is a place to visit. To rest and recharge. I aim to move there when I retire.
Pilgrimage
Jennifer has oft mentioned
Heart Shaped!
Santiago del Compostela her desire to walk the Way of St. James from France to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain. This modern-day pilgrimage of several weeks is now undertaken by some 200,000 people every year. With the kids at their current ages however - although definitely logistically still possible - the opportunity cost of dedicating an entire summer to the task at this stage meant it was never a realistic option.
Pilgrimages, of course, are the polar opposite of life in the comfort zone. Historically these journeys were challenging and oftentimes arduous. But this was part and parcel of the purpose. Though increasingly rare these days to hear it as a motive for travel, in the last few decades people would set off “traveling” to “find themselves” and for millennia before this there was the pilgrimage – a journey to help develop the spiritual being of a person, to fortify the soul.
Unbeknownst to us play-it-by-ear-ers; we rolled into Santiago de Compostela on July 25, which just so happened to be the feast day of Apostle St. James: the most famous celebration on the calendar. Tonight was going to be a huge celebration with feasting, dancing and
Papa and Kiva
Donastia San Sebastian fireworks, capped with a light show set against the cathedral which would see it crumble and rise again from the rubble. The Plaza del Obradioro and surrounding streets were filled with thousands of pilgrims at the end of their journey. Most were there in order to pay homage to the remains of St. James. And here, eating ice cream with the kids, in amongst that lot, seeing all these walkers with their sticks and their looks of exalted ecstasy as they entered the plaza and lay eyes on that magnificent cathedral for the first time, marking their journeys’ end… I was in awe of their awe.
Our trip through northern Spain was perfect, and therein laid the paradox for us
peregrinos automóvil. It was a slice of life in the comfort zone.
“A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what a ship is built for.”
After a stop in Pontevedra we’re off to Portugal, a country we’ve never been to before, so we’re expecting the water down there to be a little deeper.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.095s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 13; qc: 38; dbt: 0.0487s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I agree with you completely...
as I was reading your description of "hyggelig" I immediately thought how Shane ("Travel Camel") felt next to the fire place with the wind and rain beating at the windows at the Lough Eske Castle in his most recent blog. As for The Way, that's been on my list also, but after breaking my ankle this year I didn't think I would be up for it physically...and found that there are five Pilgrims Ways of varying lengths; including the much sorter original way. So it's still on my list, although I would want to do the 800 km way from France, and hope that it remains on your wife's list, too.