Collecting Consciousness
By Christos Bakalexis, Bethany Frenyk, Ann Privorotskiy, and Isabel Vulakh
Manifesto
The next stop is.
Unconscious.
Opening your eyes.
Scanning your surroundings.
Unfamiliar.
Unaccustomed.
Exotic.
Foreign.
Obscure.
You feel the anxiety pumping through your veins.
You scan.
You watch.
You observe.
You reject.
The next stop is.
As we all tend to do, when tackled with uninvestigated matters.
So you go into denial.
You reject that which is undeniably before you.
Head shaking.
Body numb.
Your whole being flashing before your eyes.
Questions race through your head.
The next stop is.
Who am I?
Where am I?
You try to walk away.
To run.
To flee.
But you can’t.
You’re here and this is now.
There is no yesterday or tomorrow- only the present.
No way to evade the truth.
No way to escape this reality.
You must accept it.
You gather the courage to explore.
Regaining the feeling in your heart, mind, and body.
You stand.
A growing list of inquiries pile.
The next stop is.
Yet not a single answer appears.
You attempt to develop a sense of balance.
Perhaps a bit of determination overcomes you.
Pre-consciousness.
The next stop is.
It feels like it’s just around the corner.
Is this real?
You can almost see it.
Touch it.
Taste it.
Smell it.
Hear it.
Feel it.
You are brave.
The next stop is.
Perhaps you might almost call it confidence.
As you wander and find things that bring you one step closer to your destination.
The tip of the tongue phenomenon.
Almost as if a part of you is afraid to realize something.
Afraid to unleash a side of you that you didn’t know existed.
The components are all there.
They are merely disconnected and your job is to assemble the puzzle.
This is completely unlike you.
You are paranoid.
Obsessive.
Almost neurotic.
The next stop is.
You need everything laid out before you.
You are forced out of your comfort zone.
And to be in such a helpless environment is overwhelming to you.
But established boundaries must be erased.
You know that.
A sense of fear washes over you.
Nearly knocking you off your feet.
Yet you chose to persevere and there is no turning back.
The next stop is.
You muster all your strength.
Stand your ground.
As you continue on your journey to awareness.
You begin to gain a sense of familiarity.
A sense of comfort.
A sense of ease.
As you make those first steps.
Your fear subsides and a feeling of adventure replaces it.
It all comes together now.
How could you not have seen it all along?
The next stop is.
You are surprised.
Dumbfounded.
How could you miss that which was before your eyes the entire time?
We tend to overlook the beauty in simplicity.
And rather focus our energy on making things unnecessarily complex.
But perhaps you should have known better.
Perhaps you should have let go of your inhibitions earlier.
You should have trusted yourself more and explored the unexplorable.
You should have been the tourist who ventured into foreign lands.
The sailor who conquered untamable waters.
The inventor who created the unthinkable.
You realize where you are and what your purpose for being there is.
The next stop is.
You’re there.
Consciousness.
What is the next stop?
