Manifesto of the Perfect Pilgrim

(journey to the center of the self)

To you who far away shall wander; to you, pilgrim tailed by a thousand voices.

Are you ready for a long journey, to leave everything behind you and never look back? What will you pack in your suitcase of memories? Mind, you need to travel light and fast, roads are in bad conditions and means of transportation are slow and unsafe and you want to go faster still. Make those treacherous merchants bite your dust even as they try selling themselves on horrible and noisy bandwagons in the middle of piazzas crowded of nothingness.

Make sure that the memories you carry in that rickety suitcase will do for all seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Do not forget a pallet, for many nights you will spend out (embrace the meaning), sleeping under a vault of stars.

From now on, the world will be your home.

Be wary o wanderer, for many are the roads. Some take to dark chasms, where your spirit might turn into a shadow squashed under the weight of events. Even more, the signs that are there to direct you are all wrong, so make sure to give them names that are fit to your purpose.

Customs tariffs are often expensive and the only currency they accept is your soul. Yet, you need to pass the border. Brutes with grim faces will stare at you from their armors made of iron and prejudice. They are the guardians, men paid by masters to eradicate hope from the hearts of men. Any attempt at talking to them is useless as these automatons have no opinion of their own.

Stay true to your road, never stop, and the day you discover yourself you will be ready to dive into the spiral of the capsized eight.

You have now read the manifesto of the perfect pilgrim, who left on a day of May in search of his destiny, enclosed within mysterious symbols, that is lost relics that perhaps have never existed beyond his self.

But fear not. What truly matters is feeling the joy of going past the merchants as you run on the fast legs of your mind, the thrill of vanquishing the guardians and their prejudices to finally leave the masters and their millions behind.

Be a crisp, young breeze, and nothing and nobody will ever catch you; be a lively, tenacious fire and nothing and nobody will ever quench you.

Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

By Jason R. Forbus / Wolf on May 2003