Abstract
I looked through the aeroplane window and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I recognised the route I had taken on my approach to Sydney. I grabbed my phone and took a picture of a distinctive section of the road that I had covered on day 32 of the walk, from Sanctuary Point (covered by the wing on the right) to Bomaderry (under the low-level clouds on the left) indicated with an ‘x’, Fig. 22.1.
You have full access to this open access chapter, Download chapter PDF
-
12 August 2018. 3pm.
-
30,000 ft above New South Wales.
I looked through the aeroplane window and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I recognised the route I had taken on my approach to Sydney. I grabbed my phone and took a picture of a distinctive section of the road that I had covered on day 32 of the walk, from Sanctuary Point (covered by the wing on the right) to Bomaderry (under the low-level clouds on the left) indicated with an ‘x’, Fig. 22.1.
In the middle of the upper photo, marked with a square, is the bridge crossing the Shoalhaven River that I photographed while walking, lower picture.
I covered 34 km on that day and was on the road for 7 h and 40 min, remarkably close to my standard 7.5 h of work per day. But looking down from my window, that full day of work as a pilgrim disappeared from my field of view in a matter of seconds – it felt as surreal as the moment I arrived at the Sydney Opera House.
The plane then veered inland, and I lost sight of my pilgrimage route.
Sydney and Melbourne are connected by a flight of just over one hour and they are both in the Australian Eastern Standard Time zone. It would be inexplicable to experience any sort of jetlag on such a short hop, but I did experience an acute case of ‘mind-lag’ when I got home
Astoundingly, nothing relevant came up when I googled ‘mind-lag’ so I will offer my very own definition of the term.
Mind-lag /mʌɪnd lag/ noun. The feeling experienced when the body seems to arrive before the mind.
A symptom of jet-lag is the struggle to stay awake or to fall asleep when one should be awake or asleep. In contrast, the symptoms of mind-lag include a spinning sensation in the head and repeatedly saying, either out loud or in one’s mind: “I can’t believe I am here!”
After re-uniting with my dusty backpack at the conveyor belt in the baggage re-claim area, I ditched my plans to take public transport home. Instead, I chose a scenic walk in hope my mind would catch up to where my body now found itself. A sort of self-medicating mind-lag treatment.
When I eventually reached my front door, I received the enlightenment that hadn’t arrived when I had taken my last step at the Opera House: pilgrimages don’t finish with the walk.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chevez, A. (2022). Mind Lag. In: The Pilgrim’s Guide to the Workplace. SpringerBriefs in Business. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4759-9_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4759-9_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-19-4758-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-19-4759-9
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)