You go to the museums and the tombs and the ruins and the statues because everyone else does, because these places are famous, because you’ve seen pictures of them all your life, because the tours focus upon them, because these are the places you can get to easily and you don’t know where else to go until you’ve been there awhile. You know these places are impressive and important, and you expect to feel enriched after you’ve seen them.

Now that you’ve have made your pilgrimage to the various shrines and wonders of the world, you can say for sure that the tombs and the temples are no more than ruins, suggestions of shapes with crumbling corners, useful now as a focal point only, an excuse to go to a place and wander through new worlds for a while, to pretend you are someone else, to imagine you have been reincarnated, to twirl around with your eyes wide open, to fantasize, to play, to revel in the freedom of the foreigner, to wish upon stars that have witnessed all of earthly history, and to know that you belong to it all.