In the middle of a descent today, I became aware that one of the toes of my right foot was warmer than usual. Uh oh, blister.
Sorry for no pictures! Will update when I get wifi :).
I had done everything to prevent blisters - high quality socks, Vaseline, moleskin. My immediate diagnosis? My sore left knee had forced disproportionate weight onto my right foot, causing the discomfort.
I had overcompensated.
The story of my Camino has been taking the very mundane moments of my walking experience and blowing them up as much as possible, hoping that the debris made some sense. What else am I supposed to do with 5 hours of time alone every day?
I spent the next hour or so asking myself whether the motion of overcompensation is impossible to avoid. As I shifted more weight onto my left foot, I wondered how I would actually know whether the change was too little, too much, or just right.
Well, until my left knee began to feel it again. Ok, overcompensated there. So I shifted some weight (less this time) back to my right.
And so on and so forth.
I don’t know if I’ll stop overcompensating before the end of the trip. Even when the discomfort stops I’ll still be constantly adjusting… I think?
In all the life around me, there is constant overcompensation. Setting the porridge temperature to be just right seems impossible. Sorry Goldilocks.
Another fun Camino example: the first three weeks or so I never cooked, just ate out and went to the supermarket to buy fruit and pastries for the next morning. I did it because the group I walked with did it and I was treading water on my budget, but not going under.
I never really seriously considered the dissonance in my head from the realization that everyone in my walking group was willing to spend more than me.
Since I’ve started walking alone I’ve taken the chance to cook with a friend of mine, someone I met on the trail a while back but never actually talked to until a few days back (see “Intentional Coincidence, part 2”: https://andrewsun.substack.com/p/intentional-coincidence-part-2).
Honestly some of the best moments I’ve had on the Camino - home cooked food has been such a breath of fresh air (and easier on the wallet), as I went to Spain straight from college and so haven’t experienced it consistently since December. And I’ve really enjoyed bumping into the same people at the supermarket each day, right at opening time - always the one open supermarket.
Intentional coincidences.
But I’m sure I overcompensated. I’m sure at some point I’ll start to miss the bars and restaurants and eating with younger people, and maybe I’ll go back to that more and then start to miss the supermarket, etc etc etc.
Disclaimer: very hand wavy math digression ensuing
Maybe an equilibrium exists, but I feel like I always am converging toward it but never reaching that exact point. Always “epsilon” (a very small amount) away but never exactly there.
There’s this philosophically fascinating phenomenon in probability which goes like this: if there is a continuum (an infinite) number of possible events, the chance of any one event is exactly zero. . .
Ok that’s it! Not too bad right?
I almost like to reinterpret this in my Camino experience: I will never actually reach this “just right” equilibrium because it’s impossible - as you constantly reframe the norm, what was once missing from your life becomes what you take for granted, and vice versa.
The systems we inhabit in our world, from something as trivial as the Camino supermarket community, to economics and politics, are always in motion that we can characterize as overcompensation, and whether you perceive said motion or not depends on your privilege.
The free market theoretically dictates that there’s an equilibrium between supply and demand at the intersection of these two lines on that super famous graph. To professors and students, it’s good enough to leave it at that.
But maybe to people looking to make ends meet, this is not specific enough. The reality closer to the ground more resembles constant overcompensation, a slight tick up in demand overcompensated by a too high surge in prices, so on and so forth. Like a dart board where the bulls eye is the equilibrium, but it’s impossible to hit.
Political science classrooms might take for granted the idea that Republicans and Democrats classically alternate power, but this is again an example of overcompensation that is reformulated as very real policy benefits and harms for very real people, and it endangers programs that are meant to be long term (not necessarily exclusively) instead of politically volatile (think Social Security, climate crisis policy).
All of this makes me feel more comfort in feeling like I am swinging side to side like a pendulum, but never at rest. Always in motion - but it’s not wasted motion if it’s impossible to avoid.
So I’ll enjoy the supermarket as much as I can and embrace the restaurants when that feeling arises. I’ll make it a game to shift less and less weight between my feet and see what my legs say in response.
Why not make the pendulum a rollar coaster?