In a prison cell, what ought to be done is not designing escape plans that lead nowhere, but decorating the walls.
In a prison cell, what ought to be done is not designing escape plans that lead nowhere, but decorating the walls.
―
Atrona Grizel
The planet
neither asks to be saved nor requires redemption. Yet humans, unable to bear
their perception of a meaningless existence, become dependent on the need for
some form of “meaning”—not because meaning is necessary, but because they
cannot endure its absence. Thus, they invent causes, missions, and
struggles—vain distractions masking the truth that nothing, in the end, can be
“fixed.”
― Atrona
Grizel
The selfishness
of the young may even be a necessity, because they are entering a world that
piles expectation upon expectation onto their backs. Society does not leave
youth alone. The old, meanwhile, are like sweepings pushed aside by that same
world, discarded with the label “no longer useful.” And it is precisely this
that leads, in the elderly, to a loss of self brought about by spiritual
serenity. A Buddhist is old, and this is natural. A young Buddhist, by
contrast, is like fire being forced to become water.
―
Atrona Grizel
Culture means
homogeneity. The state of “people growing closer to one another” is, in fact, a
species closing in on itself, turning into an echo chamber. Such people are
distant toward the outside and close toward the inside, once they become the
carriers of shared values among themselves. That is to say, they are naturally
prejudiced against those from other cultures—or especially against those
belonging to no culture at all—because the very formation of such a community
requires the exclusion of those who are not part of it. This is the foundation
of nationalism and patriotism. When this condition appears not in groups but in
individuals, it becomes respectable; for in the first case, the individual
annihilates themself by offering themself to a god, while in the second, they
annihilate others by deifying themself.
―
Atrona Grizel
Even uttering the
name of a philosopher or writer in my native language strikes me as faintly
absurd, because the language itself seems openly hostile to depth. It is a
language of mediocrity and impulsive immediacy, and when serious ideas are
spoken aloud, this almost inevitably signals either identity signaling, an
attempt to appear “well-read,” or sheer, hollow mockery. The places where such
names and concepts are mentioned are usually little more than bureaucratic
educational environments, and even there the atmosphere is slack. Participants
observe as if watching a film, accompanied by coffee, coughing, and laughter.
There are no underground libraries. There are no mountain monasteries. Even if
such places did exist, they would likely be saturated with traditionalism or
nationalism. The libraries would contain predominantly religious and
conservative texts, and the monasteries would be populated either by those who
retreated there for pragmatic reasons, or by charlatans with no genuine
commitment to silence or seclusion, but who seek belonging to a group and, in
doing so, the gratification of their own pride. There is a reason this ethnicity
has given birth to no genuine, aggressive thinkers for hundreds of years; those
regarded as thinkers are invariably wrapped in culture or religion, which means
they did not tell anything new at all. What emerges instead are physically
strong yet intellectually empty fanatic barbarians.
―
Atrona Grizel
To understand
states more closely, one must first push history into the background, because
at their core they are all symbols. Imagine a room filled with many people
wearing different kinds of clothing; states are like this too, reflections of
themselves. My admiration for authoritarian aesthetics does not have to mean
admiration for authoritarian politics. Carrying a country’s flag doesn’t mean I
support it; maybe I just like the way it looks. But people carry such perfectly
flat minds, without even the smallest bump, that they immediately jump to that
conclusion. They say, “Take down that Soviet flag because that flag ruined my
country decades ago.” I simply won’t. They are probably talking about Afghanistan,
but I do not really care about Afghanistan. I do not understand why they try to
impose their own views on me. They may be Afghan and therefore feel loyalty to
that state, but I do not have to be Afghan, and this does not mean that I am
wrong, because being Afghan is not the single correct way to exist and cannot
be, since everyone’s life experience is different and each life is separately
valid within its own reality. Sometimes the devil tells me to grant myself a
unique power and, purely out of spite, to cover all of Afghanistan with Soviet
flags that constantly stab everyone in the eye and can never be removed.
Because people like these are not the kind of people who get to say such things
to me; they are nothing.
―
Atrona Grizel
What leftists aim
to do is destroy hierarchies because they believe that by doing so, they will
attain paradise. Yet isn’t “paradise” found not in the destruction of the
system itself, but in the elimination of the very desire and yearning for such
a thing? Isn’t absolute freedom found in the absence of hope for freedom
itself? Isn’t the one who does not need to be free the only one who is truly
free?
―
Atrona Grizel
Those who engage
in activism are not motivated by genuine compassion for others, but by a subtle
desire to escape their own inner emptiness. When a person lacks a fulfilling
and promising inner world, they turn outward. The activist becomes dependent on
the external; they seek to change the external world because they are enslaved
within inner one.
―
Atrona Grizel
The genius
watches and observes, while the fool acts and participates.
―
Atrona Grizel
I stopped trying
to express anything because there was, increasingly, nothing to express. Not
because there is nothing, but because there are too many.
―
Atrona Grizel
When boredom and
weariness replace anger and rebellion, one grows accustomed to the futility of
everything, and in that familiarity, everything begins to appear trivial.
―
Atrona Grizel
One who has spent
their most precious times in a hollow space does not become “cold”; they grow
sharper. For this sole bottomless mind trapped within all-consuming
shallowness, superficiality serves only to hone its sword-like intellect even
further. The sharpest people are usually of two kinds: one has shut themselves
off from knowledge and experience because they carry an rigid and ignorant
mind, while the other, after countless mental assaults and emotional violations,
celebrates themselves through self-protection so that this hidden-treasure-like
form of their mind does not perish. One must observe the difference carefully.
―
Atrona Grizel
The system is
architected so that the individual fears losing their job—in essence, their
chains—because survival depends on possessing those very chains. Thus, the fear
of losing them becomes desperation, for those chains are life itself.
―
Atrona Grizel
Treating an old
person is like desperately oiling a rusted machine that has become inoperable,
just to keep it functioning a little longer. Yet the wreck has stopped working;
its next place is the junkyard.
―
Atrona Grizel
If I were a
famous person, to take a kind of revenge in my own way, I would just leave
hearts on the comments people make on my social media accounts, and perhaps at
most just a few sentences of a “reply” and move on, just like they persistently
and systematically do to me. Likes on social media should be seen as stamps of
indifference. But instead of hating it, they would enjoy this psychological
torture method. For their fragile happiness depends on those emojis. A few
pixel lights flicker on their screens, and when they see this, they feel
“validated” and thus relieved. They don’t resent this algorithmic superficiality;
they cherish and encourage it. No one sees the murderer beneath those “overly
innocent” expressions, and none of them will realize that I am giving them this
drug they are addicted to, not in a friendly way, but purely in a mocking
manner.
―
Atrona Grizel
When I refuse to
go to school, I always feel as though I were a slave without any rights saying
to his master: “I don’t want this.”
―
Atrona Grizel
For those who are
in need of meaning, everything is meaningless.
―
Atrona Grizel
If compulsory education
exists, children will be sent to school regardless of their personal
inclinations or thoughts. Or if compulsory military service exists, men will be
drafted into the army regardless of their inner values. A question like “Do you
wish to?” will never be directed to the individual—for the state does not ask.
―
Atrona Grizel
Consider those
who sacrifice their lives for their country—those martyrs celebrated by the
state. The state cherishes these individuals, venerates them, and uses their
memory in its propaganda. Why? Not out of love or affection, but because these
individuals serve the interests of the state perfectly. But those who resist
and refuse—those who question and say, “Why am I even holding this rifle?” on
the battlefield—are always labelled as traitors and cowards. And because
everyone thinks the same way, they are fundamentally excluded from society. And
so, the herd reigns supreme.
― Atrona Grizel