Speaking better does not necessarily lead to being understood better. Often, it leads to the opposite.

 Speaking better does not necessarily lead to being understood better. Often, it leads to the opposite.

― Atrona Grizel

I am standing only because of pressure, really. If that pressure were removed, I would collapse, because I carry an identity that I have constructed to withstand pressure. It is something like this: when both I and the other side apply pressure, things remain in balance; but if the other side stops applying pressure, since my own pressure still remains, I topple toward that side. The chronic physical fatigue, mental dissociation, excessive urge to sleep, and complete lack of appetite for even the smallest bite that I experience during “periods of relaxation” stem from this, because I was designed not to enjoy vacations but to endure war. The profession of a warrior is to fight, but trying to accustom such a being to idleness and comfort will provoke a backlash from their nature, because they will be left aimless, with nothing to do in times of peace.

― Atrona Grizel

To understand society, all you need to do is observe a person who does not question. Such a person absorbs society’s behaviors and thoughts like a sponge, as if designed for this very purpose, and consequently becomes whatever society is. They are so transparent that there is not even such a thing as a “self” there, because they are merely extensions of society; they never approach societal values with skepticism. For example, if people engage in animalistic tribalism to the point of stabbing one another over loyalty to football teams, that person becomes part of it as well. Or if the topics everyone talks about are always concrete and practical—such as the sex lives of celebrities—then that person joins those conversations too. As a result of countless such examples, this ordinary individual eventually turns into a “society machine,” because they do nothing other than execute what already exists. What stands before them is a narcotic culture that rewards not inner coherence but external performativity, and that operates according to a reward–punishment system—one to which primitive brains automatically adapt merely for pleasure.

― Atrona Grizel

To be able to enjoy music, I have to make myself forget that it was created by humans.

― Atrona Grizel

I will not go to anyone, because there is no one who attracts me to that extent, and no one will come to me either, because there is no one who finds me that attractive. Neither side needs the other, and where there is no need, there is no connection. If there were no loneliness, there would be no connection. For at the core of all social relationships lies a fear of loneliness and the silent signing of an “anti-loneliness solidarity pact.” Even if someone were to come to me, I would interpret it only as a dependency. At its core, it might even be an innocent curiosity, but in the end, is that not still being dependent on the external? The most independent one is the one who does nothing at all. But the inaction of others does not stem from independence; on the contrary, it arises from dependence, their dependence on their friends.

― Atrona Grizel

I have never encountered anyone in my life.

― Atrona Grizel

I live a completely isolated existence, so much so that at times I feel lonely even within myself, because even I am, at my core, a mechanical biological apparatus. When I enter a room, for example, my mind reminds me of something it had forgotten, and this eases my loneliness because my brain reminds me that I am with myself. Yet even in this I sense a kind of mechanism, because at my core I am nothing but machine. I have seen how the bodies of dead people relax by contracting. This essentially shows that even the mere existence of the brain constitutes a constant indirect pressure on the body. This appeared extremely animalistic to me and led me to think that the existence of consciousness might not even be possible. Even the many thinkers who break patterns, when viewed from the outside, evolve as biological creatures that are part of the biosphere of a random planet within a void called the universe, producing such things in a determined way, much like an animal preparing to mate. Even these different humans are predictable in that sense. And I am essentially nothing more than that myself.

― Atrona Grizel

It is impossible for a state’s constitution to contain “bad” articles, because it is built on lies. Because it has to be that way. This is a state, and states operate within lies. At the very least, people who express ideas outside the traditional framework and do not hesitate to spread them can be imprisoned for the crime of “inciting hatred among the public and disrupting social harmony.” The state, of course, will not call this “punishing free thought”; instead, it will always try to present it as something dangerous, and in line with this, even mental health systems may be brought into play by labeling the individual as insane. Because the state cannot say, “I have banned thought.” If it does, it loses the image it constantly carries of being a “provider of order.”

― Atrona Grizel

A person’s preparation for death is due to the knowledge of death, not to the reality of death itself, because no one learns whether they will die or not until they die, and when they die, they die without ever having learned it. Those who receive terminal medical diagnoses, those who carry out suicide attacks, or those who simply grow old would not prepare for death if they did not possess this knowledge. What particularly draws my attention is the case of the elderly, that is, preparation for death as something that occurs naturally, because here the person is clearly waiting for the end of life and probably withdraws from everything, setting seriousness aside. This is a kind of compulsory indifference, belonging to someone who does not have the luxury of thinking about whether to be serious or not. And the reason for this withdrawal is a waiting. But in fact they do not know what causes that waiting, because if they did know, knowing would not be possible, since only the dead know death, and the dead know nothing because they are dead. Does this not show that life is an illusion? Just as death cannot be known, life also cannot be known, because the living ultimately join the ranks of the non-living. Then what is life, in the most fundamental sense? What is this thing that a person’s eyes see? What are these words I am pouring out? Are these even my thoughts? How can all of this exist at all? The answer is simple: they do not exist, but throughout a lifetime the organism is forced to treat them as if they do, in order to make them bearable. Why does it endure them, then? That too is unanswered. The organism itself does not exist either, and this is a non-existent ontological game between two non-existent things, and life is the thing that calls this nothingness existence: a non-existent process, enacted by non-existent entities, staging a non-existent drama, and then naming the whole non-existent performance “existence” so it can keep going for a non-existent time. Preparing for death is simply a smaller nothingness waiting to return to this broader nothingness, which will result in nothing. I can deeply understand what an old person feels when they snarl in panic, “This is the end of the road!” and precisely for that reason, instead of comforting them, I would say almost calmly, bordering on indifference: “Yes. Do not bother.”

― Atrona Grizel

When I try to explain myself to people, they frown and drift away. So I stop explaining myself to them. But this time, they frown and drift away because I don’t explain myself.

― Atrona Grizel

The societal status system rewards certainty, not accuracy. Those who think loudly are ranked higher than those who think clearly, though deep rivers rarely flow loudly…

― Atrona Grizel

The inability to deceive oneself is a terminal social disability, because ordinary social life is built on rapid forgetting and mutual blindness. Exist honestly and be excluded, or belong by self-betrayal.

― Atrona Grizel

At times I imagine entering a kind of coma in which all communication with the outside world would be severed, while my receptors would remain intact. I could hear the outside world within my mind, yet I would be unable to express what I hear, because my body would be rigid. In this state, I would renounce the concepts of “responsibility” and “duty” in the most absolute sense. Beyond that, there would be nothing they could do to me, because I would not even be present before them. They would not be able to reach me. Only my body would remain in the world, and whatever they did to it would not matter to me.

― Atrona Grizel

Psychiatry was openly abused in autocratic regimes, for example the diagnosis of “sluggish schizophrenia” in the Soviet Union. It was affixed almost like a nickname to those who harbored thoughts against the regime, and they were sent to mental hospitals. Yet in a sense even those persecuted dissidents were lucky, because even if it was concealed by propaganda, there was a clear enemy in front of them. Today, however, this practice has spread across all states, so there is no longer such a visible enemy. Bureaucracy itself has become the enemy, and as a result, the individual no longer even knows what they are fighting against. This produces people who cannot point and say, “This hurt,” only “Something is wrong.” The sharp increase in suicides compared to the past likely has something to do with modern life being a kind of black stain that has merged with a mask so white it cannot be proven as such.

― Atrona Grizel

Followers on the internet are mostly simple numbers. Increasing that number by focusing on whatever is currently trending is not merely easy but almost automatic, because even though there might be real people behind the numbers, their interests are predictable to a degree that reduces them to algorithms.

― Atrona Grizel