“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” observed motivational speaker Jim Rohn. Well, hell. I spend much of my time with “creative people,” a professional hazard that explains quotidian lunacy of my life. It’s not me, it’s them—I’m just the sixth wheel, suffering the agony of their influence.

What I need is an organizing principle to direct our collective energies into a premise more productive than bailing our dinghy of untested talents as it founders on oceans of coffee and wine.

By providence, this week coincides with the 110th anniversary of Dada’s announcing itself to the world by way of a… wait for it…. Manifesto.

This is what we need.

A manifesto is not just a rallying cry—it’s a strategic guide for organizing your creative community into a movement. It’s the first step to “manifesting” a functioning scene. Or it’s a formal pronouncement of one’s descent into madness. Only time will tell.

Like a corporate mission statement, a proper manifesto codifies a group’s purpose but with heaps more swagger. Consider the Dada Manifesto (PDF):

“Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it,” wrote poet Hugo Ball in 1916. He was wrong. Dada didn’t take until artist Tristan Tzara rebooted the manifesto two years later, thus anticipating Hollywood’s current business model by a century.

George Maciunas’ Fluxus Manifesto (born from a magazine project that never materialized), includes this mandate: “PURGE the world of dead art…” though it’s the malingering dead artists who’ve made it difficult for new artists to emerge.

Some manifestos endure, others are ephemeral. Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto advocated for the eradication of men and capitalism, and, in practice, Andy Warhol—but all of them survived. The so-called “Presto Manifesto,” conjured by a cabal of magicians, was literally a puff of smoke. 

Your manifesto need not be particularly long or read like an academic screed. The seminal document of the Dogme 95 filmmaking movement amounts to a 262-word “Vow of Chastity” that prescribes what they and their acolytes will and, mostly, won’t do in the course of their filmmaking. Signed in Copenhagen in 1995 by filmmakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, it also conveniently provided cover for the lo-fi production value of their films.

So perhaps it’s time to write your own. Not because the world is clamoring for another declaration of principles, but because it’s clarifying to state in plain language what you believe, what you reject and what you’re willing to devote your finite allotment of days to pursuing.

Gather your fellow weirdos. Declare your intentions. Start a club. Invent a movement. If enough of us do it, perhaps we can celebrate with a Manifestival—a gathering devoted to impossible ideas, dubious proclamations and wildly overconfident mission statements.

If your manifesto fails spectacularly, congratulations—you’ve honored a century of avant-garde tradition. If it succeeds, even better. Someone else will write the next manifesto explaining why yours got it all wrong.