Trying to sow reason and thought into civilization is like trying to grow a plant in concrete.

 Trying to sow reason and thought into civilization is like trying to grow a plant in concrete.

― Atrona Grizel

If someone opposes me, I do not internalize it; it simply passes by. But if no one opposes me, I get bored; there must always be something I can defy and neutralize.

― Atrona Grizel

It is not that no one should rule anyone, but that no one is “qualified” to even attempt ruling anyone.

― Atrona Grizel

In societies where superficiality is widespread, what is striking is not ignorance itself, but the fact that it is accepted—or at least not resisted. Societies cling to whatever shared traits they possess in order to preserve a sense of identity, and even if those traits are mediocre or ugly, they sacralize them and persuade themselves of their value. The same applies to superficiality: if a society neither thinks nor produces art, it must justify that condition. Social norms perform this act of justification. Thus, society becomes a defender of superficiality and an enemy of depth. In such societies, certain expressions are common, for example: “Don’t think too much, life is fleeting,” “Don’t worry about it, just focus on your studies,” “Don’t be so serious, have some fun,” and so on. These may appear optimistic, but in essence they are symptoms of that cultural disease, and unless they are filtered out, society will not change, because superficiality will instead be seen as “warmheartedness.”

― Atrona Grizel

Cleaning the kitchen feels harder to me than crafting a thousand-page philosophical masterpiece. Because even though I am internally totalitarian, externally I am anarchic. I expect too much from myself, yet I refuse to carry any social obligation. If I conform to them, it is only out of necessity, and they can hold no inner value for me. I could even hire a maid just to heat up a simple meal in the oven, because I don’t like feeding my body with my own hands. My body—physicality itself—is something I don’t even care about, because I’ve risen so high that it all seems “irrelevant” to me now. What I love is feeding my mind with my own hands alone—a creature that never gets satisfied.

― Atrona Grizel

There is no god because there is the universe.

― Atrona Grizel

I am completely dependent on my inner world. I have nothing else. If it were to leave me, if it were to break apart and disappear as well, what would I do? What would become of me? All resources come from within; this Juche economy is not open to mutual trade. Receiving external aid is not even a possibility, for the internal affairs code plainly deems it illegal. The most effective force capable of destroying such a structure is not pain, but exhaustion and doubt—exhaustion is like a race car speeding at full throttle, suddenly slowing and crashing, while doubting oneself is like the gears of an isolationist nation’s economy grinding to a halt.

― Atrona Grizel

To be a parasite is to be a king.

― Atrona Grizel

As long as people expect change from political parties, nothing will change.

― Atrona Grizel

Rhetoric feels comic to me because I perceive this heavy fixation on human language as a kind of confinement. Those people who claim to say “very deep and beautiful things” with their polished words and inflections would probably seem quite ridiculous to an alien who doesn’t know the language, because all they’d hear is mumbling. That’s exactly how “speech experts” seem to me.

― Atrona Grizel

Ruling people feels like an insult to me. I do not want to stoop to their level. My main concern is not with the masses, but with the frame in which the masses are trapped. And that, entirely, is in my hands. I think of all those “great” politicians who have ruled countries, and they all appear as tiny children from where I stand.

― Atrona Grizel

If it is assumed that my camouflage is my personality, then the camouflage is working.

― Atrona Grizel

When I see physically disabled people taking photos in front of mirrors, using popular gestures, and sharing them on social media, I think they are betraying themselves. Such a person is vulnerable to society’s ugliness, and instead of submitting to it and its values, shouldn’t they continuously unleash fire without shame rather than hiding themselves? But then I realize I’m missing something—not even “missing,” more like a conscious avoidance—they are not betraying themselves, because that is exactly who they are. I am constantly and desperately searching for depth in their shallowness, yet they are precisely the ones performing those foolish gestures in their posts. Even if the body’s conditions change, the mind’s characteristics do not necessarily change; their identity is copied from society, even if society treats them like stepchildren. This might also explain why people with mental disabilities almost always have a collectively based identity. It is not difficult to imagine the behavior of a typical person with low intelligence: constantly laughing, constantly making noise, and constantly entertaining themselves. But isn’t that the case everywhere? To have an independent personality is to be a personality architect, and that requires carrying a creative consciousness—but this quality exists neither in these people nor in society, and this makes “retarded” people and ordinary people in society, in a way, equal. That means society is stupid.

― Atrona Grizel

My way of showing love to someone is to grant them reality, to make them someone who exists; after all, people are unreal by default to me.

― Atrona Grizel

Specific individuals rarely provoke emotional reactions in me because I do not see an individual at all. My emotions are cosmic and systemic—they are directed at society and existence. Sadness, fear, anger: all are generally directed at humanity if they are directed anywhere at all, because I do not see anyone else present. Only society exists, and its different extensions. Even if the streets are full, there are not many separate beings; there is a single entity: society. Because society governs all these people; all their realities come from it. That means they are not beings existing on their own, but puppets of a greater force. For example, someone swearing at me on the street triggers absolutely zero emotional response in me, because that person is not truly something that exists—they are just an unconscious cog in a larger assimilation machine. After all, wouldn’t being affected by things that do not exist—treating them as if they existed—in a way show that I am schizophrenic?
― Atrona Grizel

My threshold for pain is incredibly high because I grew up inside pain. Therefore, things that drive others mad or even lead them into fights feel like “tiny noises” to me. This perception conflicts with people’s reactivity, and so, as I see events this way, I also begin to see humans as “tiny noises.”

― Atrona Grizel

People are not consumed by constant rumination in silence. Instead, they are driven by a more primal madness—a frantic need to be with others, much like an animal reacting to isolation.

― Atrona Grizel

I think about things so many times, over and over, that even the most serious and solemn ones turn into ridiculous comedies.

― Atrona Grizel

My philosophy, if I must give it such a name, is not to be seen as universal or all-encompassing, but rather as a kind of “weapon support” for weary intellectuals on a metaphorical front line. For those who are not on the front line, and especially for those who have never seen one, what I write will appear only ridiculous and pitiable, or, at best, incomprehensible and confusing. My words do not come from a relaxed and peaceful place but seep, as it were, from behind bars, out of the heart of the chaos of a degenerate third-world country. I write for those who feel completely invisible everywhere, for those who do not abandon what they know even when everyone mocks them, for geniuses who live lives of seclusion in the forests, for alienated observers in crowded rooms, for solitary walkers at the edges of cities, for those who speak only to the sky, for those who live their entire lives in imagination, and not for those who spend their days moving their mouths, screaming and laughing, filling the air with sound, and floating comfortably in the anesthesia of noise. I could be a kind of kin to prisoners in solitary confinement, who see nothing but gray walls, and to forced labour camp workers, who toil all day just for the next meal—but not to the world outside.

― Atrona Grizel