Democracies, in order to “protect democracy,” suspended the suspension of democracy, and thus eliminated democracy.
Democracies, in order to “protect democracy,” suspended the suspension of democracy, and thus eliminated democracy.
―
Atrona Grizel
There is no
connection between worthiness and importance. Something may be valuable, but
that does not make it “important.” I may not care about a person, because they
could simply not exist and nothing would change. But I may value them, because
there is an aesthetic in it. To care is something beneath me, almost vulgar. To
value, however, is priceless.
―
Atrona Grizel
The DPRK, which
imprisons journalists, puts tourists into comas, raids southern waters with its
submarines, sends criminal vessels into Japanese waters, trains commandos to
assassinate politicians, hacks the servers of Western companies, and is
therefore hated, excluded, subjected to sanctions, and talked about but never
listened to, has one very important characteristic that it shares with me: defining
itself not with the world, but against the world. That alone is enough for me
to feel an emotional closeness to it, disregarding, though not ignoring, all
those actions as “necessary side features and consequences.”
―
Atrona Grizel
When I left the
human world, at first I fell into a void, because my brain had to rewrite
itself, even though I had only just separated from humans. That was why it was
so painful at the beginning. And instead of music, I heard only silence in
solitude. This silence was absolute silence, a kind that carried neither
aesthetics nor depth, a silence that isolated. But then I began to adapt. As I
grew alienated from humans, I drew closer to non-humans. And I was astonished
to realize how vast this world is and how I had failed to notice it for so
long, because during the time I spent in the human world, my brain had made the
human being the central focal point of everything. On this desolate path I had
many companions, and they kept me company without guiding my way. I formed countless
friendships with winter, autumn, thunder, wind, rain, fog, mountains, and
forests. And because they were not human, I knew that in forming these
friendships I would never be betrayed. Non-human things’ friendship is eternal.
I no longer want to return to the universe of humans, because here I have
discovered a far richer one.
―
Atrona Grizel
Social media
always presents what exists as something better than it really is. Because if a
person posts something there that cannot be consumed—something that isn’t funny
or entertaining—then it will neither be liked nor help them make friends. What
is actually ugly or even disgusting is not confronted as it is, but dressed up
until it looks palatable or “aesthetic.” For example, if there is a plain,
colorless, and dull street, and someone takes a photo there, maybe they are
mocking the street for being like that. Or maybe they are highlighting the fact
that although all the streets look like this, they still find themselves
standing there. That might be an interesting gesture, but it pulls attention
away from the reality of the matter. Because what is, at its core, filthy, is
no longer seen as filth—it is turned into a commodity, something to be bought,
sold, liked, and commented on. In other words, people become desensitized to
the dirtiness of it. Dirt isn’t dirt anymore; it’s “content.” Streets aren’t bleak
anymore; they’re “relatable.” If instead of these filters and effects that
conceal reality, someone simply shared a picture of a bare wall, of course, it
would seem unbearably boring to minds that are addicted to pleasure. Because
the sick culture that governs social media always demands excessive optimism
and happiness. And in the end, it becomes like placing a lounge chair in the
middle of a swamp or a dump just to sunbathe.
―
Atrona Grizel
I was too exposed
early to sexualized content, celebrity culture, sports fetishism, anime fandom,
and endless debates about news and politics. It didn’t just wash over me like
“passing weather”; it seeped in, reshaping my desires and even bending how I
saw myself. But since I wasn’t deeply tied to a peer group, nor was I fully
convinced by what I saw at all, I had the strange mix of isolation—or
freedom—to think my way out. I questioned what I was absorbing, tested it
against my own instincts, and slowly let my perspective harden into something
that was self-made rather than borrowed from mass society and, became its most
determined defender.
―
Atrona Grizel
If something
gives pleasure and is useful, it is false—that is, an illusion. If it gives
pain and is not useful, it is true—that is, reality. The first represents being
deceived by a nonexistent utopia, while the latter reflects honestly the nature
of existence as it is.
―
Atrona Grizel
“Innocent” people
are not so because they do not commit crimes, but because they cannot commit
them.
―
Atrona Grizel
Wishing to be
free is like wishing for all the flames in hell to suddenly extinguish, for
this is the nature of existence; everywhere, there is another form of bondage.
―
Atrona Grizel
Every state, in
order to instill in its people a sense of national identity, covertly
disparages every state that is not itself.
―
Atrona Grizel
My cave has
started to fill with humans. I need another cave now.
―
Atrona Grizel
I don’t see
anyone with a “sullen face”—because they don’t even know how to be unhappy.
―
Atrona Grizel
Every humiliation
I endure only serves to increase my pride a little more. If this pride keeps
others from approaching me, then it must be known that I am the most humiliated
of all.
―
Atrona Grizel
The only benefit
I could ever provide to society is to destroy it.
―
Atrona Grizel
I walk alone
through streets packed to overflowing.
They tore me from
my habitat when I was born.
They have lifted
away every sea and put in its place an endless desert.
I reach out my
arm, yet I cannot pass beyond the glass that surrounds me.
It separates me
from the outside—and the outside from the inside.
Then I scream,
and I hear no sound.
Then I look at
people, and I see no one.
So I wait—not
necessarily for anything, perhaps simply for the act of waiting itself.
After all, an
octopus in the desert does not concern itself with flailing.
―
Atrona Grizel
How does one
endure, for decades, a humanity that has gotten itself irreversibly trapped?
Either by becoming accustomed and mechanical—which is the response of the great
majority of adults—or by refusing to adapt and thus enduring a lifelong siege.
―
Atrona Grizel
I find plump
village grandmothers in their seventies more interesting than professors.
―
Atrona Grizel
I would prefer
not to be alone in the world, but rather for it to be uncertain whether I am
alone or not.
―
Atrona Grizel
I spend my entire
day, from day to night, imagining places full of humans being cleansed of them.
Only then, only after all those excesses are sifted out, will I savor what it
feels like to breathe.
―
Atrona Grizel
There has never
been anything else that has filled me with as much pleasure as the thought of
waking up one morning and realizing that there is no one. As if the game had
finally collapsed, and life were opening its eyes to the world upon its ruins.
As if the curtain that had hung for centuries were at last torn down, revealing
what lay behind it—raw and pure. The fact that the world will always contain
people, and that I will never experience this planet without the physical
presence of humans, is a suffocating nightmare to me. Every day I wait for
humans to vanish so that I can finally begin to exist, while I know that they
will not. Those silhouettes are stuck to the planet and cannot be torn off.
Each one seems like a piece of decoration placed everywhere solely to disturb
me. The closest experience to this utopia without humans is the earliest hours
of the morning and the late hours of the night. And how pleasant both are…
― Atrona Grizel