Repetition is a form of exorcism ritual.
Repetition is a form of exorcism ritual.
―
Atrona Grizel
The authorities
would call my family only when I messed things up. The moment they spoke to my
mother and father about me, a warning would inevitably be delivered. Naturally,
I would startle as soon as I heard my name being pronounced. This situation is
not limited to this alone, actually, because whenever my family wanted to talk
to me, they always acted as if I had caused some trouble again and they needed to
“lecture” me about it. Since they never spoke to me naturally, the moment I
heard the word “talk,” I would instantly tense up, expecting something bad to
come. Because I was noticed only when I did something that disturbed the order,
and was invisible the rest of the time, having my name called produced,
reflexively, a sense of threat in me. “What have I done now?” I ask anxiously
within. Not out of cowardice—but because if I drew too much attention, things
could get out of hand. And precisely for that reason—even though I have no
instinctive fear—there is a mechanism in my mind that makes me flinch at the
smallest things so I won’t let the rope slip from my hand. The moment I step
into society, I move into an internal state of worry and vigilance; it is not
shyness or timidity but entirely a defensive reflex. My brain obsessively
controls everything. For my mind has sworn to itself subconsciously, “Never
again will I be unprepared.”
―
Atrona Grizel
If you give a
human being eyes, they will live according to what is seen; if you give ears,
they will seek satisfaction through hearing; if you give a tongue, they will
lose themselves in the pleasure of taste. Everything is deterministic. Even the
human possession of consciousness is natural—mechanical in nature—its function
being to process the world rather than transcend it. Consciousness is not an
exception to determinism but one of its tools. Therefore, those who live
according to the world—who not only accept it as real but affirm it as the sole
reality—stand close to animals, for animals too know no other world. Give them
eyes and they see, ears and they hear, a tongue and they eat. Everything
functions automatically. Biological life is a mere reaction.
―
Atrona Grizel
My consciousness
is somehow still “awake,” but nevertheless, in the moments when I am
“asleep”—which usually occur in the morning hours, while I am mentally
preparing to battle with the day, before I have to be dragged out by an
alarm—the dreams I see feel more intimate than a film and even more real than
the physical world, and I lose myself inside them. Once I have such a “living
dream,” shaking off its effect usually doesn’t take long, because in the rush
of the day I don’t get much chance to look inside my mind. But if I didn’t have
to force myself to get up, by sleeping like that I could truly live in a more
vivid universe—in a completely different place, time, with people and a body,
where I am the God and thus everything is possible. Still, their foundations
lie in my subconscious; sometimes I seriously wonder whether the dreams I see
are actually fragments that recall my real life. I form a kind of connection to
my true self through my imagination. And when this happens, I wonder where the
planet humanity calls “Earth” is, and how I came to fall here and be abandoned.
―
Atrona Grizel
Because my brain
hasn’t received any external stimuli other than noise for years, it invents its
own stimuli and, in order to survive, treats them as if they were real at any
cost. I remember my dreams better than my waking experiences because they are
the only things that feel worthy of remembering. And because nothing there
addresses me, the outside world fails to hold my interest. Outside, always the
same things—that is, the same faces, the same voices, the same conversations,
the same behaviors, the same routines—await me. Inside me, beyond even the
whole universe being mine, I am utterly replacing this universe with my own
universe. And this one had never felt this self-celebrating compared to the
other. By making this my life, I reached the limits of perception. I thought so
much about reality and consciousness, and I cut through and examined them so
thoroughly that, in the end, they lost their forms and liquefied.
―
Atrona Grizel
I carry a
certainty: if I had absolute power in my hands, it would inevitably turn into
what is defined as the “abuse of power.”
―
Atrona Grizel
Neither pouring
out my heart, nor gaining new experiences, nor medication, nor meditation, nor
a psychologist; the only thing that kept me alive was my imagination.
―
Atrona Grizel
When I look at
ordinary people that are alien to ruminating, I see that the only existential
angst they have is the possibility of falling into hell after death.
―
Atrona Grizel
Hardly any
expression or profession could be imagined as absurd and ridiculous as
“philosophy teacher” or “professor of philosophy.” Because you cannot ”teach”
me how to think, nor how others thought.
―
Atrona Grizel
It is possible
for a person to express respect by refusing to stand. But the only form of
“respect” that society understands is a narrow one: standing upright.
―
Atrona Grizel
What does the
solitary and intelligent person do, seeing that fools are always loved and
always have plenty of friends? Regard all relationships as rotten at the root,
worship solitude as the price of reality and originality, and never let go of
it for anyone. And what happens when they are constantly subjected everywhere
to having every single word they say labelled as “arrogance” or else
“corrected” by others? They begin to harbor a fundamental distrust of
expression, may come to see speaking itself as a form of weakness, and may even
develop a reflex of persistently refusing to say how and why this is so—rightly
so.
―
Atrona Grizel
Even though I
keep saying my imagination is vast, there is one subject where I can never go
beyond the limits: the possibility of a life other than the void I’m in now.
Being understood, for instance, has always felt alien to me. So alien that I
didn’t believe it could happen in the physical world, because it’s a theme
belonging only to my dream world. It has always been like that. Since I have
never escaped this cycle, everything else feels unreal, for I take it as the
only reality.
―
Atrona Grizel
I imagine my body
merging with someone else’s during sexual intercourse… nothing could sicken me
more. It is the collapse of “I” into “we,” and “me” to “us.” It is the loss of
my sovereignity and my independence. It is the erosion of my cosmic vision and
my existential freedom. It is a threat to my individual identity and my godlike
self. Will they merge with me? Will they swallow, with all of themselves, a
creature as carefully estranged as I am?
―
Atrona Grizel
Dramatist
teenagers who are obsessed with love novels and romantic movies, naturally see
me only through that lens when they hear about me. I become Romeo in their
eyes, for example, because they see the world as overflowing with “meaning.”
They haven’t yet lived through anything that would force them to tear that
belief away. These types can compose “touching” music, toss out “melancholic”
aphorisms, or write “deep” poems. But beneath it all lies the same excessive
inexperience and aesthetic performance. They’ve usually never touched the foundation
that makes romanticism an empty shell, because they don’t have the shovels to
dig that deep, so they stay dazzled by love. They cannot live without that
so-called “prince of their dreams,” because they are both accustomed to and
dependent on idealizing something outside themselves. Since they are always
chasing after a shared, collective reality, their individual identity has
hardly developed. And even if it has, their minds have not become so godlike as
to make the universe kneel. They are human, all too human. That is why the free
spirit must be especially alert to these types, because they know all too well
how to pose as if they are deeply engaged with every branch of art and
philosophy, yet at the root they remain far from any clear and original—that
is, transcendent—understanding of existence. I don’t want the naive nature—in
the sense of dull-wittedness—of their innocence to stain me. I want to shout to
them, by my mere existence, that sex and love is not the center of life but
only an aspect of it.
―
Atrona Grizel
North Korea is my
brother. He is a warrior like me, because being under constant siege requires
it. Because of that, there is a mutual admiration between us. The Soviet Union,
on the other hand, is my mother. I imagine that beside her, I could cry without
shame and behave like a child without restraint, because she treats me with
both affection and understanding in every circumstance—always as if she were
behind me. As if she will never leave me, no matter what happens. Would a
mother like that ever let go of her child, anyway? But only her ghost
pleasantly haunts me, since her body passed away decades ago. In other words,
North Korea and I are orphaned children, hardened by the hardships of life,
with the persistent legacy and memory of our mother. I respect the DPRK, but I
love the USSR. While I live, I want to carry the North Korean flag in
brotherhood. When I die—if I am to be placed in a coffin—let them wrap my
coffin in the Soviet flag. Just as I lived fighting beside my brother, I want
to die in my mother’s arms. If I had a loving family in the physical world, I
would never have such an eternal bond…
― Atrona Grizel