Holzwege
“In a physical sense a road is an external actuality, no matter whether one is walking on it or not, no matter how the individual travels on it – the road is the road. But in the spiritual sense, the road comes into existence only when we walk on it. That is, the road is how it is walked.”
Søren Kierkegaard
Holzwege
Martin Heidegger wrote that “wood” is an old name for forest. In the wood there are paths, mostly overgrown, that come to an abrupt stop where the wood is untrodden. They are called Holzwege. Each goes its separate way, though within the same forest. It often appears as if one is identical to another. But it only appears so. Woodcutters and forest keepers know these paths. They know what it means to be on a Holzwege.
The forest is a metaphor for the basic problem of being, which may be viewed in terms of attempting to explore a densely wooded area. It draws attention to the feeling of being lost in a tangled forest and trying to find a way to the clearing.
“When you are on a journey, and the end keeps getting further and further away, then you realize that the real end is the journey.”
