Thinking is stopping; stopping is seeing; and seeing is distancing.
Thinking is stopping; stopping is seeing; and seeing is distancing.
―
Atrona Grizel
I cannot find
myself in any environment I find myself in. My sense of belonging always exists
elsewhere, in a higher, more abstract layer inside my mind.
―
Atrona Grizel
I spent my entire
youth in my room because there was no external authority that would validate
this inner world. I would get out of it either by becoming criminal in an
external sense, that is, by openly getting involved in legal crimes, or by
becoming criminal in an internal sense, that is, by openly getting involved in
“metaphysical crimes.” The second one happened.
―
Atrona Grizel
Aphorisms allow
the use of contradictory expressions because there is nothing systematic in
them. Each aphorism is a separate planet orbiting the same star. If I tried to
confine myself to rules, that is, to articles, I would betray myself, because
everything deep carries contradictions within itself, and these are not
“mistakes.” But reason and science unfortunately do not recognize them and
immediately try to “correct” them.
―
Atrona Grizel
I would
absolutely want to be “schizophrenic,” but I mean those who live in dreams like
Pessoa, not the ones screaming in psychiatric wards. In other words, artistic,
not clinical, “schizophrenics.” I feel close to his obsession with creating
original identities, because I do the same, though to a lesser degree and less
systematically. They take the place of the different people who are missing in
the real world. Since I am always surrounded by the same type of people,
accepting that the whole world belongs to them would feel like an insult to me.
So I build alternative people inside myself just to endure these homogeneous
ones, to convince myself that they are not the only people who exist. Because
if there are countless kinds of people, then the fact that a certain type hates
me will not matter much, since others may love me. These imagined people are
always outsiders, mostly Byronic heroes or antiheroes, and all of them have
pasts and lives full of pain and misery, yet they carry vast inner worlds that
remain unrecognized precisely because of their vastness. When I relate to them,
I become confident and self-assured, because I know for certain that they will
understand or at least admire me, since they come from a similar path to the
one I come from, the path of being fundamentally separate from the herd. And I
suppose that with anyone on that path, I could have deep conversations about
any subject. My proud and self-loving attitude beside them is not because, in
my imagination, all power belongs to me, meaning my dreams are unrealistic in a
literal sense, but because they are solitary and sensitive people who would
almost certainly know the worth of my inner world, respect it, and even worship
it. I am a walking cosmos, and I always find solace in such characters in my
mind. I would even be willing to let my entire connection to what is called
“reality” break off completely and accept that my dream world is the only world
that remains.
―
Atrona Grizel
A person must
wander through the labyrinth within themselves not as an explorer but as a
drifter. An explorer, who depends on coordination, will be trapped when they
cannot find their way, but a directionless drifter will never feel “lost”
there, because they were never looking for a path in the first place.
―
Atrona Grizel
The smallness and
insignificance of humans in the universe does not create fear or worry in me,
but rather joy and celebration, because I am not a human but the universe.
Given this, I cannot take humans seriously. Even when they try to look “cool,”
imagine these actions being viewed not from the perspective of a simple human
but from a cosmic being gazing from between galaxies, stars, and planets. Then,
of course, it would not look “cool,” but childish. That is the point: my
authority comes not from humanity but from the cosmos, and this alienates me
from this planet for the sake of familiarity in the emptiness of space.
―
Atrona Grizel
Objectivity is
relative.
―
Atrona Grizel
Utilitarianism is
of no use.
―
Atrona Grizel
Science is the
domain of flat-minded people wrapped tightly in complexity. For science, saying
“this and that” is enough to explain something because it appears “objective.”
Yet the very thing that defies reason is where beauty lies, such as the
elegance of a flower. Science can explain this elegance biologically, but it
cannot feel it spiritually. It simply does not have such power. Science has no
soul. The objectivity of the external world towards the inner world is a kind
of dogmatism, while the objectivity of the inner world towards the external
world is mysticism. This is why inner truths can be explained not by science
but by art. The only science suitable for the soul is one’s own private
science. Spiritually complex people are philosophers and artists, whereas those
who are only mentally complex are theoretical physicists and therefore gray and
dull.
―
Atrona Grizel
In my early
adolescence, I used to fear people because I imagined what they were always
thinking about me, since I had only just begun to get to know the world and had
not yet formed strong observations about people’s lives. But later I learned,
in the longest and most painful way, that they do not think about me at all,
because I do not even exist for them. This settled in my mind as a permanent
piece of conviction, and it freed me from others’ judgments. This also led me
to stop valuing others’ opinions if they would not bring me trouble. For
example, when a child picks on me, I do not care at all, because it is obvious
they cannot cause me any real harm. A child cannot get me fired, for instance.
But with adults I pretend to care only to avoid getting into a more dangerous
situation, not because I respect them.
―
Atrona Grizel
A saint laughs
and cries because he or she is still human. God, on the other hand, simply… is…
or is not. That is, he is always silent. He gives no reaction, or if he does,
it is incomprehensible, because he is sufficient unto himself. But a saint
cannot exist without him. Saints love saints with compassion, but gods can only
admire gods.
―
Atrona Grizel
People appear to
be living, but if one pays attention, they do not bear the real signs of life.
Being biologically alive is not the same as being spiritually alive. People are
not conscious because they are not even conscious of possessing consciousness.
They do not know what they have fallen into, and without ever wondering about
it, they simply move around for no reason. On a street everything may seem full
of life, and people may even give you way, greet you, or ask questions, but
even these are not evidence of life; they are only proof of routine.
―
Atrona Grizel
A person who
experiences silence as deprivation cannot be taught the value of thought.
―
Atrona Grizel
When I try to get
rid of people by saying mockingly, knowing they will not understand, “Fine, you
win, I’m crazy, now leave me alone,” they fail to grasp what I mean so
completely that they take it seriously and say, “Then let’s send you to
therapy.” I will not comment further.
―
Atrona Grizel
If a person is
underwater, they do not scream; they simply drown silently.
―
Atrona Grizel
If one pays
attention to the conversations of ordinary people, one will see that they speak
only about what they see and experience. In other words, their tiny worlds
remain only in the concrete and do not concern themselves with the abstract.
There are two types of conversation: one is carried out over tea and cigarettes
while playing card games, about trivial subjects like sex, work, or sports; the
other takes place in underground libraries, abandoned cathedrals, or simply in
dimly lit rooms, presenting unheard-of, controversial, and profound ideas about
the nature of perception and reality. Those who engage in the first type are
the ordinary ones, and they cannot pursue the second type of conversation;
those who engage in the second are precious ones, and they cannot pursue the
first type of conversation. Both sides mock each other for this. But in a world
where noise, not depth, is fashionable, it hardly needs to be said that the
first type makes up perhaps ninety-nine percent of all human conversation on
the planet.
―
Atrona Grizel
When admitting
adults to professions that require social interaction, employers seem to pay
attention to one thing in particular: “Is this person a good actor?” It is as
if an invisible authority forces them to perform roles, such as laughing
artificially at jokes they do not actually find funny. They spend their entire
lives deceiving themselves this way and call it “politeness.”
― Atrona Grizel