Gossip societies are ideal for those who live according to their nature; whatever comes into their minds is instantly on their tongues: pure impulsiveness.
Gossip societies are ideal for those who live according to their nature; whatever comes into their minds is instantly on their tongues: pure impulsiveness.
― Atrona Grizel
Because solitude pushes the brain into the Default Mode Network, a person begins, almost inevitably, to live in thought. Whether those thoughts are soothing or torturous aside, this state leads the person to neglect the outer world. In that condition, they may magnify the external world far beyond what it really is, as if it were some kind of monster. They may even become afraid to step outside, because the solitary mind has started brooding over even the smallest detail. But if they manage to go outside and simply remain there for hours, what they will notice is that everyone is occupied with their own life. At most, someone might place a hand on this person’s shoulder and ask, “Are you okay?” That question may seem simple, yet it can pull the solitary person out of the bottomless well within and remind them of the simplicity of the outside world. And perhaps that is why what exists in the mind—that is, in theory—differs from what exists in practice, in the outer world: the solitary person’s mind grows ever sharper and more rigid, whereas society, precisely because it is dull and shallow, is complex, and thus actually allows for every kind of possibility.
― Atrona Grizel
How am I supposed to get rid of this society? Or at least this family? Do I have to go out into the street and scream? Or cut myself? Why is there no authority that makes this possible? Do I really have to file a “complaint”? There should have been institutions that offered, almost as a service, a kind of voluntary exile to someone who simply says, ‘I don’t want to live with these people in this place.”
― Atrona Grizel
The state is threatening to revoke my citizenship. If that happens, I might even struggle to eat. So it is making a show of power: “It is thanks to the rights I grant you that your stomach is full, and if you do not love me, I can take that right back whenever I please.” But if the state is not going to feed me, then why does it exist at all? Am I sacrificing so much of my freedom merely for its amusement? I would have liked the freedom to punch every face I come across in the street, yet the state prevents this through its laws, guards, and police. But when it also takes away my most basic need, food, why do these other freedoms of mine continue to be restricted? Does the state exist only to oppress me? There is also this mentality in this society: for them, whatever the state says is final—"If the state has done it that way, then of course we must obey.” What is this obsession with the state? The greater the number of infantile people who cannot live without the state, the greater the loyalty to it.
― Atrona Grizel