it only took one page of the art of pilgrimage to get me going... this page was of course in the sleeping car out of zagreb, after a considerable journey from belgrade, but even now it was enough. medieval pilgrims were in awe when encountering the new scenes and people. this feeling is cathartic - i have realized what i consider the greatest difference between my perception/experience of traveling and those of most people i know! i have been able to travel the world and keep a rather innocent eye! i can see amazing things the moment i stray from my daily surroundings, even though i've see some of the world's great wonders! i return home with my boon of images (mental, philosophical as well as photographic), but most of them amaze me too much to speak, the experience being internally oriented from my senses. but fostering this tenderness has come at a cost - the only genuine travel experience i have ever had entailed solitude, and a lot of it. even this 24 hour trip across the continent will probably not detoxicate my system from the surrounding influences, paving the path to nirvana - a moment of tranquility and bliss in a place of few visitors where the energy of the ages reaches a peak. these are the things that become further between both because of the less frequent visit to such sites, as well as the mentally toxic life that i lead.
and as i lay in my little bunker, tightly packed between two bunks on the croatian-slovenian border, the ideas that came to me so many years ago now find higher levels of clarity and a clearer description, at the cost of realization of how truly precious they have become.
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