“Where are you from?” I asked. 

Maya smiled and thought for a moment, “Nowhere.”

I was confused but intrigued. I walked, or rather trudged, beside the tall woman, gasping as I struggled to keep up with her long strides. I had been walking for ten days. My sandals were worn down from nearly one hundred and sixty miles of steps. These dusty little shoes had carried my backpack and I from Porto, an understated city in Portugal, across the Spanish border, and finally to my destination, which I would reach in just a few hours - Santiago de Compostela. This was the ending point of the Camino de Santiago, a renowned spiritual pilgrimage in Europe.

Maya was a stranger just a few moments before. Just another pilgrim passing me by. For a backpacker, she had a lot of accessories: dangly earrings, a blue tie weaved into her long braid, a scarf secured to her waist strap, and a dot of eyeliner in the center of each eyelid. 

“You’re not from anywhere?” I inquired. I could tell she was amused by my bewilderment, “Not anymore. I’ve been traveling for years. I don’t consider myself ‘belonging’ anywhere.” She spoke casually, as if belonging nowhere was natural. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea. I spoke with a handful of new backpackers every day. Their stories varied. Some were years deep into their travels - rugged individuals who were overflowing with radical philosophies. Others had brand new packs, shoes that were yet to be broken in, and prestigious positions they would return to in a few weeks. Most were somewhere in between. Whatever their experience, reasons, stories, and life outlooks were - no two were ever the same. But so far, they all considered themselves belonging somewhere. For some it was the country they were born in, for others it was the Camino de Santiago itself. 

“I have learned a lot from traveling by foot. I much prefer it to any other lifestyle. I believe that the less stability you have on the outside, the more stable you are on the inside.” Maya continued, speaking her truth as naturally as one would speak of their favorite coffee order. As though she wasn’t reconstructing my world view with a few sentences. 

I was struck. I pictured a life of movement from place to place. Not knowing what each day would look like, where exactly you are going, who you would meet, what you would eat, and where you would sleep. Instability was an understatement. Then I thought of an average week in my own life at home. Many of my days in school were virtually indistinct from the next. At times it seemed I was drowning in the monotony. The predictability of my life as a student was stable, but was my state of being? Anyone who describes the average student’s well-being as “stable” has never encountered an honest one. In some distant way, I was able to relate to the concept. Finally, I responded, “that makes so much sense. It’s almost like you are forced to create your own sense of stability - but within yourself because you aren’t relying on it to come from anywhere else”

She seemed to quicken her pace, if possible, as she spoke more excitedly, “Exactly! I think people are too used to being spoon fed a stable, predictable lifestyle. A nine to five, a comfortable house, a home base…” She trailed off. Her hiking poles digging into the dust was the only noise for a moment.

“Anyway,” She picked her thought back up, “I sold all my things, quit my job, got rid of my house. It was all holding me back from experiencing life - and reaching my full potential as a person. It’s just me and my backpack.” She paused for a moment, “-and my mind of course.”

My face must have shown my puzzlement as I worked through all that she said but she seemed to be enjoying it. I could not seem to wrap my head around the idea. I understood the impulse for adventure, being fed up with the repetitiveness of a job or school - needing to get away from it all. But her solution was so absolute. She had nothing to fall back on and nowhere to return to. This was extreme. 

“You’re brave. I would be so afraid to get rid of everything I have - there is so much I feel attached to. But I think your ideas about life are beautiful.” I responded honestly. She smiled warmly. There was something so genuine about her, perhaps her sense of peace. 

“Thank you, I guess I just have a lot of time to think while I walk. But I think if everyone had this much freedom, many would realize that the less you have the more you are.”

I suddenly had a vision of myself two weeks prior. It was my first day of walking, and I was already shedding unnecessary weight in my bag - items I swore I could never go without. Yet somehow, when it came down to relieving the stress of the backpack straps on my shoulders - nearly everything in my bag felt unnecessary. Along with the weight of these items, I temporarily shed the sense of stability that my possessions gave me. For two weeks, I belonged to no piece of land for any longer than it took for my sandals to carry me away from it. Maya did this on a much greater scale - she shed the weight for a lifetime. She chose a lifestyle that is everyone else's biggest fear: having nothing to call her own - not even a country. A life that most would see as a failure, she saw as the most complete form of freedom. If the number of possessions she had were too heavy for her shoulders, then they were simply unnecessary - and why be crippled by the weight? Why be tethered to a single location?

The answers to these questions are obvious to a person who believes that peace comes from being, not from accumulating. Of course, a pilgrim would have a firm grip on this concept. Maya understood what most would consider “stability” as a barrier to her freedom. She recognized it as an illusion, thus freeing herself by choosing not to buy into it

In the eyes of a nomad, the accumulation of property only equates to success in the form of wealth, but not in any other aspect of life. This distinction is something that the average person would be far too afraid - or programmed - to make. Why? Because we buy into the illusions, structure our lives around them, and often prosper because of our participation in the system they create. But who does the system benefit? It’s certainly not the average person’s wellbeing.

Perhaps the backpackers have discovered this secret already. They all in some form or another realize the beauty in possessing the bare minimum and escaping a life of predictability. Whether for three days or a lifetime - they choose to live outside of the illusion and break the chains that constrain them to some extent. Maya happened to take it to the greatest extreme - believing true freedom isn’t granted from a government, and genuine contentment isn't found in wealth. The system would have us believing otherwise, but the illusion is a force of power that only applies to those who are expecting to receive something from the dynamic. She didn't need it, but rather found within herself what people rely on a system to provide for them. 

So, take a walk with a backpacker for a few minutes. Ask a few questions. They might tell you the secret to life is exercise, or tree hugging, or adventure. Or - they might tell you to own nothing and belong nowhere - Karl Marx himself would probably consider that radical.