The Pilgrim

Standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out at a black abyss, a rope appeared before me and began to unravel itself and stretch out into the distance until I could no longer see where it led. I took my first step onto the rope and was surprised by how stable it was and how easy it was to walk upon. Thus I began my journey into the abyss.

After I had walked for some time, I looked back and could still verily make out the cliff upon which I previously stood—it was disappearing into the distance, as though cloaked in a fog, and the sight of it filled me with pride, as it was confirmation of the progress I had made.

I turned away from the cliff and it was then that I made my most egregious error—I began to run on the rope, carelessly, recklessly, arrogantly—and inevitably I lost my balance and fell. As I was falling I reached out and grabbed the rope with my right hand, holding it firmly.

Rather than immediately pulling myself up, as would have been the wisest course, I looked down into the blackness of the abyss, which at once swallowed me up. I looked up and could only see my hand which was still tightly gripping the rope, but the rope itself was fading away at the ends, until only a few feet remained.
Hope and pride had been replaced by anxiety and self-doubt, and an echo came into my mind saying ‘Pride goeth before the fall’. This echo seemed to have the force of a hurricane wind, and it loosened my grip.

Suddenly, there were foreign fingers plying my hand free from the rope, and I wondered who these mischievous fingers belonged to—my jealous brother? Or perhaps it was my father? Or was it possibly a friend that I had left behind on the cliff, now become my enemy? I looked up towards his face, but it was cloaked by that same fog which had covered the cliff from whence I began my journey. If this was my brother, or father, or former friend, then I welcomed his malevolent fingers as retribution for my arrogance—but a thought occurred to me and at once the fog covering the mysterious stranger’s face had lifted a little, and I saw his lips which I recognized as my own, but were curled in a smile that I had never before seen them make. The feeling of righteous retribution was replaced by a feeling of betrayal, and I found the will power to pull myself from out of the abyss back onto the rope, doing so just as easily as I had fallen off it. I stared into the face of my assailant, whose smile was replaced by a look of stern determination.

In my anger I reached out and pushed him, and he simultaneously pushed back at me. We were both jolted, though neither of us lost our balance entirely, as it seemed neither of us had the power to knock the other off.

I straightened up and looked upon him with anger, and I saw that he was mimicking me, which angered me even more. I stepped toward him, and he stepped toward me. As he tilted his head, I tilted mine. We continued this mirror game for some time until my frustration got the better of me, ‘Why do you hate me!?’ I demanded to know. He responded first by slowly curling his lips into that devilish smile I had seen before, and then he began…to laugh? I then realized that this specter was my own madness staring back at me, and quickly turned away from it in horror, but as soon as I turned there he was again.

“Move! You’re blocking my path!” we both yelled in unison. I was confused, and I could see the same bewilderment on his face.
“Why are you headed in this direction”, we both pointed behind us, “don’t you know there’s nothing back there.” We stared at each other despondently, until I finally made a gesture which he did not mimic. “We are not the same!” I exclaimed, overjoyed.

“No. We are not,” he replied.

For the first time in my long journey, I felt that I was not alone. I had a great desire to learn all I could from this man.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.


“I can’t remember.”



His answer puzzled me.

“If you don’t remember where you came from, then how do you know there’s nothing there?” I asked with a childish arrogance. He furrowed his brow and shook his head, as if to say that he could not find the confirmation I desired, then his eyes turned downcast and sullen; it was a look that I have made many times in the past and a thought of optimism crossed my mind when I saw this familiar countenance.

“Perhaps you saw me falling, and had come to help me?” He looked up into my eyes, then down again at the rope. After a moment, he nodded slightly and then looking up he pointed at something behind me. “I came to warn you not to let him pull you down again.”
I turned and saw the same villain that had attempted to pull me off the rope, with that same look of vengeful determination. And then another figure appeared behind him, and another, and another, ad infinitum. The queerness of this sight compelled me to turn away, where I saw that my future self—if he can properly be called my ‘future self’—had vanished, and when I turned back I had found that the infinite creatures behind me had also disappeared. All that remained was myself, the abyss, and the rope which stretched on forever.

Though I was alone now I was too filled with purpose and renewed hope to feel lonely. I continued to move forward. I promised myself that I would not run recklessly as I had before, knowing that the pace of my journey didn’t matter (I understood now that my destination would find me long before I ever found it) and all that mattered was that I continue to move forward, and that I not allow myself to be consumed by the empty blackness which surrounded me, or the self-hatred, guilt and shame which was and would always be following close behind me.

I continued confidently along until off in the distance I saw another rope to my right. I saw a man walking on the rope who looked familiar, but I could not make him out as he was far away, and I am notoriously near-sighted. I saw that the rope-walk which was so easy for me was in fact a great struggle for him: he was off-balance, moving forward at what could scarcely be described as a crawl. Part of me wanted to help him learn to balance himself better; so that he may walk his rope with more grace and poise—but I knew that how he walked his rope didn’t matter so long as he continued forward.

After I had watched him for a while he began to take notice of me, and I could sense that I was making him self-conscious. I was about to turn away from him when I saw another figure on this man’s rope, running him down at an alarming pace.

“Look out!” My words echoed out across the abyss until they reached his ears. My warning did not have the desired effect, however, as it only seemed to startle him, causing him to lose his balance and fall. He grabbed onto the rope, as I had previously done, and just as before the villainous creature that was tracking him down was now taking advantage of this hapless man’s moment of vulnerability, attempting to ply him from his rope by stomping viciously and mercilessly on his fingers.

The words ‘help me’ echoed and filled me with a sense of dread and hopelessness. ‘What can I do?’ I thought, ‘I am stuck on my rope just as he is stuck on his—the distance between us is simply too great for me to help him.’

It was then that I was compelled to look down at my feet, which were perfectly balanced cross-wise on the rope; their sureness astounded and awed me, as though they were not even my own feet, but the feet of a man to be admired—the feet of a leader. When I realized that these feet did in fact belong to me, that they were mine to command, a thought occurred to me. I looked across at the man struggling with his phantom, losing his grip, and I was filled with an overwhelming, all-consuming love for this man, as I had recognized his struggles as my own. This love along with my new-found admiration for myself and what I could do combined to make the thought of impossibilities an absurdity. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then stepped off my rope into the abyss, and thus awoke from my dream.



Man is a rope between the animal and the Superman--a rope stretched over an abyss.

Stare long enough into the abyss, and the abyss stares back at you.

~ Nietzsche

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He's a poet, he's a picker
He's a prophet, he's a pusher
He's a walking contradiction
Partly truth and partly fiction

Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home