Praktisk Filosofi - Practical Philosophy: The Path as Choice

The Path as Choice – A Pilgrim’s Reflection

Myself, walking to Santiago de Compostela. Privat photo.

I have walked the path myself.

From St. Jean Pied de Port, across the Pyrenees, through dust, silence, pain, and wonder—until I reached Santiago de Compostela. Eight hundred kilometers. Thirty days. Alone—and yet, in the company of thousands.

I did not return the same.

An Ancient Road – A Living Tradition

The pilgrimage is not only my story. It carries traces of something much larger.

As early as 1108, Sigurd the Crusader made his way toward this destination. Later, the Reformation of 1537 brought pilgrimage traditions in Norway to a halt. The roads fell silent—even those leading to Trondheim.

Centuries passed.

Then, in the late twentieth century, something began to move again. Since the 1980s, pilgrims have returned to the road. Today, thousands walk each year toward Santiago, carrying the scallop shell on their backpacks—a quiet sign not only of where they are going, but that they are on the way.

St. James – The Silent Companion

At the heart of this tradition stands James the Greater.

One of the disciples of Jesus Christ, among the closest, and the first of the apostles to suffer martyrdom. According to tradition, his remains were brought to Santiago, making it one of Christianity’s most important pilgrimage destinations.

But perhaps it is not primarily the history that makes him present on the road.

He is not the system builder.
Not the one who explains.

He is the one who walks.

Perhaps that is why he remains the patron saint of pilgrims: not because he shows us the way, but because he reminds us that we must walk it ourselves.

The Path Is Not Given

Before I began, I thought—as many do—that the path was already there. That it was simply a matter of following a route, reaching a destination.

But it is not like that.

I came to understand something of what Søren Kierkegaard writes: the path is not something laid out before us. It comes into being as we walk it.

Each day began anew. Each day required a choice:

Will I continue?
At what pace?
How will I meet what comes?

And perhaps most importantly:

Who do I choose to be in this?

The Gravity of Freedom

There are moments on the path when something quiets within you. Not necessarily outward silence—but inward stillness.

A point where you can no longer postpone, explain away, or hide behind roles.

You stand there—as the one who chooses.

Kierkegaard calls this “the dizziness of freedom.” Not fear of something specific, but a kind of trembling awareness that something is at stake.

And perhaps it is precisely there that life unfolds.

Walking Together – As Strangers, As Home

What changed me most were the encounters.

People from all corners of the world. Different languages, lives, and stories.

And yet—a recognition.

I have often felt like a stranger in the world. But here, something shifted.

I was a stranger—and at the same time, at home.

Not because we were the same, but because we shared something fundamental:

We were on the way.

Practical Philosophy – Lived

I have written that practical philosophy is about making choices and taking responsibility for the good.

On the path, this became real.

Not as theory. Not as abstraction. But as lived experience:

When the body aches.
When I meet another human being.
When I choose to open—or to withdraw.

Here, Kierkegaard meets Aristotle: freedom and choice, alongside phronesis—practical wisdom that arises in the moment, in the concrete.

Not as systems, but as life.

After the Journey

Looking back, I can say that I walked to Santiago.

But that is not the whole truth.

Something in me also began to walk.
And it has not stopped.

A Thought I Carry With Me

The path was not lying ahead of me.
It came into being through my choices.
Each step was not only movement through a landscape—
but a movement within myself.
And somewhere between being a stranger and belonging,
I began to sense
that it is not the destination that changes us—
but the act of walking.