This text is a part of The Artist Journey, a story in eight scenes that follows three travelers on their journey to learn more about art and the nature of images. In the last episode the travelers find themselves in a costal cave where they face a dead end. Unable to continue, they decide to write an artist manifesto that will help them overcome the current impasse.

It is our great dream to write a manifesto. The three of us travelers all share this dream and this is something that became clear to us in this cave, as we face the last and most critical phase of our journey, This dream appears to us in the form of a robust document, a hefty and substantial tome. This is something that we can all clearly see in its finished form. The manifesto is not something that is short, easy or simple. It is a rich and layered document. The manifesto is not poetry, it is not a ramble, it is not an odious and chaotic stream of consciousness that is spitted out by a babbling idiot. The manifesto is not looking for pretty, poetic or cosy. We need the manifesto to provide a foundation for our project, something that we can, so to say, stand on firmly; that is a solid and robust base. We also need the manifesto to energize the process and move us forward, to propel us along our path and help continue this endeavor. We need the manifesto to give us the direction, to lead us, to help us move in the right direction, to help us overcome this situation and escape the dead end where we are now, in a cave in the last phase of our journey. But while it is easy to visualize the manifesto in its complete form, embodied with various powers that we want it to posses, we are struggling to create it. We are struggling to come up with words, the three of us. Me and my fellow travelers. At times we thought we were pilgrims and at times we thought we were tourists, but now it is safest to say that we are simply travelers. Once we write the manifesto, we may become something else, creators perhaps; who knows, but currently I and my fellow travelers are stranded. Thoughts come through painfully slow out of this restricted mental apparatus. The problem must be rooted in our inability to gather and form coherent ideas. Our minds are completely and devastatingly empty. It takes mental training to develop thoughts and articulate ideas, which is something that we lack. All three of us lack coherent and articulated thoughts. Our inability to think creates a barrier in our path, and it blocks our progress. The problem is that I would like to say something but I do not know what it is. This may sound illogical and may be insane; it is an intellectual position of an idiot, you will say. We want to say something while most of the time we have nothing to say. It is our inner self, what many call an ego, that needs to express itself and wants to live; a force of some kind that may be called passion. We have a passion to overcome this obstacle. An emotion, that is separate from thoughts and logical thinking, which is propelling this process. We do not know what we want to say and are lacking coherency, we are lacking words, we are entirely clueless and speechless. There is only a force that comes out and pushes this incoherent ramble forward. This is a growth, a mass that does not communicate or signify, but only outpours, accumulates and flows. Instead of a logical structure there is an organic amalgamation, something that was formed through this senseless process. Each word comes with the greatest effort and through pain. The pain is always here and it is not poetic. There is no end to the pain, it is always there and moves around the body. The pain evades our understanding, but it is always there and becomes worse and worse until it consumes and ruins the body. These are the three bodies of three travelers that will get destroyed. The pain will appear and disappear, multiply and localize, spread and move around until it finds a spot in the body where it can take root, where it can concentrate and go deep inside, and wait there, wait for the mind to start wondering why the pain is there; soon after the mind will discover that no medication can relieve this pain and it will increasingly start to wonder and obsess. When there is no obvious cause for the pain, everything is a suspect, anything can be the reason, and most likely, it is a weakness that you know you have; we know what our critical weaknesses are and they eat us on the inside. You will relate your weakness to your pain and this connection will entangle your body like a rope. This is the force that will paralyze you and imprison you. The mind will run in circles, pulled by the centrifugal forces, increasingly looking inward. There is an image and you have a clear idea of what you need to do, but you can not move. All three of us are paralyzed. This is why we need the manifesto to allow us to move forward. We are not thinkers, and in the absence of words, we have an image. It is something a child would come up with. A child may not be able to talk well, but it can draw an image. Anybody can sketch something. Our mental process is dull and thoughts are forming very slowly. Like when one looks at a blurry picture and tries to recognize what it could represent. One can look at an old wall with broken paint and search for recognizable shapes in it. This is how our thoughts take shape and you will lose your patience with this incredibly slow and unintelligible process, something that only dreamers and idiots can engage in. The world is out there moving fast and moving forward, and nobody has time to wait for this mental quicksand. We rely on cognition for a reason, you will say. We solve problems logically and construct projects in a structured way. What can we expect from this idiotic cerebral fermentation? Folding layers of senseless drivel on top of each other can not produce something meaningful, you will say. You can not create something out of nothing with so little determination. And you are completely correct to say that. But the three of us, we are not thinkers. Every word here comes through with the agonizing pain, and we nervously repeat, endlessly repeat those few thoughts that have entered this limited conversation. This pile of dirt, this faceless stew of chaotic thoughts that we have heard and said during the journey is all that we have, that we continuously repeat and which is something that probably should not have happened. Here we wait for this dull mental fermentation to work from inside until the shapes start to emerge in the muddy brew., these forms that are growing, morphing and disappearing, and than separating and grouping into murky clouds. Will we see something materializing in this foggy picture? What can we expect at the end of this long wait? For the three people who struggle to come up with words and even more so with coherent thoughts, here is an image that even a child could have drawn; here is an uneasy and almost grotesque diagram, which reflects raw connections that have formed it. Think of someone who does not want to draw anything or even touch the paper, but was forced to draw something. This is the diagram that such person would create, an image which clearly shows unhappy conditions that led to its creation. This is the image we are talking about, at the center of our manifesto. This is the murky and questionable territory that surrounds the foundation of our endeavor. A document written by non writers containing ideas by people of drastic mental debility, people with no thoughts of their own and who are struggling to utter a word. The manifesto created by those who are not able to create a manifesto is a manifesto for those that are unable to create a manifesto. It is a manifesto that contains material of no quality, no meaning, no purpose, the mass of utterances and repetitions that should not have been uttered nor repeated. We should discard most of this unfortunate drivel that should have never been written down. This is a text that has no use whatsoever and should be entirely rewritten or abandoned. It now seems like a long time ago, when our dream started with the original image. The three of us travelers facing a dead end in a costal cave had a clear image of a robust manifesto, a handsome and substantial volume that is beaming with promise and that would provide a sturdy foundation for our endeavor as a guiding light which will give us a direction and purpose, that will energize this undertaking and propel us ahead, so that we can overcome this obstacle that is blocking our path and so that we can move onward and upward, and outward, and most of all, we need to move forward, and not just in space, but in time; and move beyond this spiral that is subsuming all our attempts to defy it, so that every time we try to straighten our thoughts, which we do not have, nor do we have words to express them even if we did, this force is bending them and folding them on top of each other, as a devious centripetal force that is making the spiral to implode and swallow its own matter (waste) that it has produced, as if this force had a personality and has said that this should have never happened, that this is only an unhappy and unfortunate end to this pointless process; an end in a circle that does not have a beginning nor end, a circle which is something self-evident and something that us, the three travelers could have realized if we had the ability to comprehend and form thoughts, if we had an aptitude to form words that would express the thoughts we should have had.

The manifesto stops here and it is hard to say if it was accidentally cut off or purposefully ended. It is generous to even call this a manifesto, but we should assume that it is completed within the rules of its own structure.