Familiarity gives birth to endurance.
Familiarity gives birth to endurance.
―
Atrona Grizel
In a video game,
there is a main character raised within American culture: he speaks in slang,
lives for sex and pleasure, feels “successful” if the opposite sex chases after
him, shows off by driving cars and motorcycles, obtains respect if he buys a
yacht, worships money and wealth, has numerous tattoos and ornaments, spends
his nights in clubs and casinos, feels “powerful” when he holds a gun, makes
racist jokes, swears in every sentence, thinks and acts like he is at the
center of the universe, and so on. Even if this game is produced in the United
States, due to the fact that the whole world has now been made interconnected
and interdependent, it easily spreads and influences other unconscious peoples.
A child in Jakarta, Stockholm, or Prague begins to use the exact same sayings
and do the exact same actions born of Brooklyn streets, Californian frat
parties, and Los Angeles gambling centers. The result is that even the culture
of a completely different country on the other side of the world ends up
becoming American; the narrator in the game becomes the very thing children
dream of, teenagers chase after, and adults turn into reality.
―
Atrona Grizel
When they tell
me, “God will strike you,” and I reply, “Let him strike if he has the power,” I
laugh so much at the look on their faces. Then they go on: “But saying this is
a great sin.” Then I answer, “I executed God; he had no power to oppose me.
Because it was I who created him; I was his God—not vice versa. If possible—if
he is able to do so—let him burn me in hell now.” Then, the label of “heretic”
comes. They probably attribute my still being alive to “God’s mercy.” But I go
even further: after insulting God ceaselessly, I point to myself, implying that
I am still alive despite it. Because God cannot unalive me; I already unalived
him. I of course do not believe I am literally a god; it is a symbolic usage.
But because their shallow minds lack the capacity to grasp symbolism, they
believe I am “grandiose.” At this point, they can get really furious, and even
that is funny. Insisting on my views about such dangerous subjects in the
presence of zealots and narrow-minded people makes me secrete adrenaline as if
I were on a high-speed train, and I love it. As long as they don’t stab me or
hand me over to the police, they can do nothing, absolutely nothing at all.
― Atrona Grizel
I will always be
a “nothing,” for things and beings with true depth are far from all kinds of
rigid labels, hollow terms, ordinary diagnoses, clear definitions, narrow
classifications, pontificating explanations, societal categories, and those
poisonous human languages that have existed, exist, and will exist.
―
Atrona Grizel
The past is
faint. The future is blurred. The present is unreal. There is no such thing as
time anymore. There is only the “thing.” Perhaps even that has withdrawn and,
so that it won’t be noticed, has put in its place a substitute toy called
“consciousness.”
―
Atrona Grizel
I have always
witnessed those who know less than me being treated as if they know more. Even
when they quickly say, “But if you don’t tell us, how could we know?” it only
served to deepen my outward silence. For I can have no wish to engage with a
humanity that follows the talker rather than the quiet one, that finds noise
interesting rather than stillness.
―
Atrona Grizel
A small body
carrying a great mind will pay the penalty of sensing and seeing things
“early.”
―
Atrona Grizel
I always dreamed
of escaping civilization. I could have been born as the child of an anarchist
family living an illegal life in the depths of the forest. I would not
necessarily go to school, nor be conscripted against my will, nor get lost in
the unending “life rush,” that is, the oppression of society. To imagine this
pleasant possibility causes me to despise every person who lives among people,
because their development of character and worldview has occurred within this
narrow social fantasy and in accordance with it. Because I know: “There is
another kind of life, or there could be. So different that none of them can
even imagine it.” While this dream stands before my eyes as forever
unreachable, how do I endure this nightmare? By knowing this: if my life had
been otherwise, I too would be otherwise, and therefore would not be this
person now, and perhaps would not even be writing these words. What makes my
current life—if I can call it “mine”—endurable, despite being rather boring and
stifling, is precisely this love—or tolerance—of fate.
―
Atrona Grizel
Even my mere
existence whispers: “Here is an alternative.” Yet I have never seen anyone able
to discern and choose this hidden path.
―
Atrona Grizel
The opinions
about me of those who have suffered less and more superficially than I have,
not only can I not take them seriously, I do not even let them pass through my
mind in the slightest.
―
Atrona Grizel
I am a person who
sees no personal god to pray to, who nonetheless feels a sacred pulse within
all existence, and who regards the question of God’s existence as practically
irrelevant. From atheism, I borrow awareness and lucidity. From pantheism,
wonder and beauty. From apatheism, peace and felicity.
― Atrona Grizel
Modern culture
rewards the loud, the fast, and the visible. It mistrusts the silent, the slow,
and the mysterious. What cannot be monetized is rendered irrelevant, and what
cannot be digitized is deemed nonexistent. And so, truth becomes noise,
authenticity becomes brand, and pain becomes content.
― Atrona
Grizel
People who have
nearly internalized the defense of society and civilization as a duty, and who
are not even worth talking about, are very numerous. They attempt to undermine
an individual’s reality, trying to prove to them that they “know life more
intimately.” This is because these people have, indeed, integrated themselves
into society. By embedding themselves in societal structures, they gain an
identity inseparable from them. Otherwise, why would someone with no place in
the social machine still insistently defend it? However, the point at which
they are rotten—for which they always have ready words to argue—is that they
take society as reality and civilization to be life itself.
― Atrona Grizel
The media and the
internet exist not to transmit knowledge as it is, but to amplify, exaggerate,
and embellish the exact reality. Whatever is displayed upon the screens is
rendered greater and more dramatic than its true form to attract mass interest.
And if a person’s only source of “knowledge” is their screen, then that person
may become stranded in a rigid world of black and white, blinded to the
spectrum of grays that lie between.
― Atrona Grizel
Since people are
incapable of exploring other perspectives, they internalize societal values and
end up as robots who always think in the same way and tirelessly complain about
the exact same things, such as getting depressed over “being ugly,” furious
over “being unable to fit in,” shameful over “not being popular,” or even
becoming suicidal over not being able to have sex and turning into a killer due
to being deprived of the “right to party.”
―
Atrona Grizel
A person who
carries a broad perspective must, in order to preserve that breadth, be
narrow-minded. That is, prejudiced against other perspectives.
― Atrona Grizel
Modern culture
rewards surface-level uniqueness, such as appearance, career path, or social
media presence, but punishes true divergence in worldview, thought, or
behavior. What people often refer to as “being different” is usually just someone
walking down the exact same path as everyone else, but with their steps
slightly bent and curved rather than being direct and usual like others. So,
although they appear as “individuals” from the outside, inside, they are
actually a herd of the same kind of sheep blindly following each other. This is
conformity within “individuality.” And this disguise is the thing that gives
the tool for the Westerners to call themselves “freedom fighters.”
―
Atrona Grizel
The spaces
“societal outsiders” frequent construct atmospheres that mimic melancholy and
discontent. Yet even these are culturally branded, bounded sanctuaries—designed
to feel outsiderish without ever genuinely stepping outside. They exist to
perform alienation, not to live it—to its edges. Because if they did, they
would discover that the only true sanctuary is the one for those few who see
sanctuary itself as a lie.
― Atrona Grizel
People are led to
believe they possess freedom of expression simply because they are allowed to
say whatever they please. At first glance, this indeed seems true: one may
share offensive jokes, hurl profanities, circulate crude memes, ridicule
religion, express rage outbursts, swear at others, or indulge in bizarre
fantasies. Yet all of this unfolds within an invisible cage—a system of rules
dressed as liberty. The moment someone speaks of suicide, rape, or other
“sensitive” subjects—not to promote but simply to confront them—their words are
flagged, erased, and their presence diminished. Even the very words “suicide”
or “rape” are censored with asterisks. They are not confronting or eradicating
by censoring; they are merely fleeing. The “crime” lies not in intent but in
utterance. Likewise, should someone express a worldview deviant from that of
mass society, their account may be silenced under vague accusations: “spam,”
“harm,” “hate speech,” or “misinformation.” For the stronger the critique, the
more ferociously it is suppressed under the banner of “security.”
― Atrona Grizel
I like not to
arrive, but to wander. My life is built upon a search—a search that does not
seek to find. If one day I were to finally discover what I have been searching
for, I would put it back at once. Perhaps I would not even take it into my
hands at all.
―
Atrona Grizel
A sovereign mind
does not think about how to adapt to society, but how to overcome it.
―
Atrona Grizel
The only thing
that is enormous and infinite is one’s own consciousness; the entirety of the
physical universe is immeasurably smaller than even a single mind.
―
Atrona Grizel
To grapple with a
single illusion, one must create countless illusions each day.
―
Atrona Grizel
How is a person’s
strength and courage revealed? By how “abnormal” they can be.
― Atrona Grizel