Only emotions matter.
Only emotions matter.
―
Atrona Grizel
I never believed
that bodily death is a kind of “materialist annihilation” or “religious
immortality.” For that to be so, I would have to think flatly—that is, purely
in an intuitionist or in a rationalist way. Yet sense and reason collapse
before the universe, and religion and science are merely the naming of that
collapse. It seems to me that after I die, the “I” will be dead, but it will
“pass” into another “I”—maybe in another country, maybe on another planet,
maybe in another galaxy, maybe even in another universe. This is not a new
idea; even as a child, I was so convinced of this view of the eternal cycle
that I found it absurd that disillusioned people were still so attached to
their lives by trying to “improve” them, and I thought: “Why don’t they just
kill themselves and be reborn in another body?” Even though this resembles
reincarnation, it’s not in that sense; a single “I” does not wander through
countless bodies, as the soul does not exist. One “I” lasts as long as a
being’s lifetime, for each of them is unique. Then a different self emerges,
and the person becomes that. And because they are now that, they cease to be
the previous person. In other words, identity is finite and transient, but
consciousness itself persists in radical transmutation. Everything that exists
is trapped in existence and will now continue to exist for eternity. It’s like
the candle flame dies, but the fire of the universe continues elsewhere, in
another form. Each self is a flame, temporary, but the capacity for flames never
ends. There is an endless transformation, but never the “other world” nor a
“permanent void.”
―
Atrona Grizel
When I remember
that my consciousness is essentially the product of meat—that is, a handful of
“sausages”—I feel like a species biologically imprisoned within nature. If
somehow my internal organs were as they truly are—visible and exposed—if, when
I looked in the mirror, I found myself staring into a brain, and when I tilted
my head downward, my intestines greeted me, what I would experience would not
be acute panic or horror, but rather the total collapse of my entire ontology
in disgust, and thus delirium. Even when I look at my body in the
mirror—camouflaged by skin—I can’t help but remember what lies beneath it, and
I’m seized by an overwhelming nausea. And as I recall that even this very
reaction comes from those slimy tissues, that they are not truly me, I wonder:
how could I possibly remain in this body if that skin were gone? For the fact I
have always brushed aside would stand before me in all its bluntness: “You are
not an abstract fantasy or an ethereal mythology—you are merely physical flesh,
formed by water and salt.” This shatters human-centered arrogance, and, just as
an insect, a plant, or an animal is classified, I feel that I too belong to one
of those millions of categories—a mortal survival mechanism created solely for
reproduction, for genes to pass through generations by means of temporary
individual bodies.
―
Atrona Grizel
What drives a
person to suicide is a kind of hope. Perhaps the hope that death is a way out.
Or the hope that annihilation will bring salvation. Yet what compels a person
to commit this act is always some form of hope. Someone who is truly hopeless
would not even see suicide as an option, because they would probably deem it
“useless.” Even if they lived the most torturous life, they would continue to
exist—if not to live, then at least to simply be.
―
Atrona Grizel
Someone who
always stays outside groups immediately draws my notice; they alone ignite my
imagination. And when I look at them, I stop seeing the human crowd and hearing
the human noise surrounding me. Not an “attention deficit,” but a spiritual
hunger: a starvation for the real.
―
Atrona Grizel
They think they
can frighten me into abandoning my ideas. I know well how to pretend to be
afraid of them, and I would not even hesitate to humiliate myself before them
if it meant saving my life, because I know two things: first, that such
humiliations have no effect on my inner self, since I know myself well; and
second, that I do not care how I appear in the eyes of those primates that have
no place in my inner world. Even if they inflicted the heaviest tortures on my
body, my core would always remain mine. They will never reach it, never stain
it with their dirty hands. It is my trust, and I will return it intact to the
nothingness from which it was given to me.
―
Atrona Grizel
The skies do not
bestow upon the individual either culture or morality. Planets do not seek
retribution; they bear no grudges. Stars do not abandon, play emotional games,
nor do they leave with intent. Black holes do not swallow the person, but
rather what is human within them—the trace of humanity, not the self. Space
does not engage in judgment, tell masked lies, nor sit in hate. The universe
does not lean even toward neutrality; it is so devoid of partiality that even
the color grey would be too much. It takes no side; it simply is. If there
exists a place for those who have transcended the human within themselves, then
this is the only place it could be.
―
Atrona Grizel
Everyone is a
robot. It’s just that some are wired differently.
―
Atrona Grizel
There are days I
cried for a fly.
―
Atrona Grizel
I feel a much
deeper affinity for a few clouds than I do for humans.
―
Atrona Grizel
The greatest art
is the absence of “art.”
―
Atrona Grizel
In my childhood,
I observed every environment I entered, and I sensed no other observer—because
there were none. Teenagers spoke in the dialect of pop culture and social
media; adults pretended at gravity, donning the mask of the “serious man.”
Thus, people began to fall into categories within my mind—not out of contempt,
but as evidence of their ordinary nature. While watching them from a distance,
I would silently ask myself—not out of sadness or despair, but out of absurdity
and ridiculousness—“How is it that you are able to live? Why do you even keep
going?” When I asked adults why humanity as a whole doesn’t commit mass
suicide, unable to find a satisfying explanation for what kept them tethered to
existence, the answer I always received was that life was “perfect,” and that
people loved this so-called “perfection.” Over time, through countless small
and large reactions to questions like these, I developed the ability to keep
such thoughts to myself, never needing to expose them again.
―
Atrona Grizel
Even when my age
was still a single digit, I carried within me the feeling that “something was
utterly wrong.” And I alone bore this feeling. I alone knew it. No one else
seemed to see what I was seeing. At times, I felt as if I were the only
existent human in the entire world. What separated my adolescence from my
childhood was that this feeling no longer merely accompanied me but began to
rule me—like a dictator, but an old and familiar one.
― Atrona Grizel