Monks are of two kinds: those who are beloved of God, and those who take God’s place; the first endures with acceptance, while the other retreats with pride.
Monks are of two kinds: those who are beloved of God, and those who take God’s place; the first endures with acceptance, while the other retreats with pride.
― Atrona Grizel
As one moves westward, alienation and arrogance increase; as one descends southward, movement and noise grow stronger; as one goes northward, vigor and discipline intensify; and as one travels eastward, tranquility and simplicity deepen.
― Atrona Grizel
Outside of writing, I have no means to express myself. I have no confidant. I have no friend. I never have. And even if circumstances allowed it, I cannot find relief through action, because I carry no behavioral impulsivity; I cannot commit murder to ease myself. Therefore, no one should complain that the page serves for me as a ledger of sin.
― Atrona Grizel
Waste is overwhelming—everywhere. So much energy is spent on unnecessary things... it is all for nothing but extravagance. Were circumstances different, people would not squander energy on trivialities, such as the glow of an ornate sign. In metropolises, if the energy wasted on advertising were redirected toward feeding those who struggle to find food, the gulf created by capitalism might be slightly narrowed. Yet, since it is the capitalist system itself that assigns such importance to these things, it naturally thinks only of profit, not of the environment or the poor. Even states have now become giant markets whose sole function is to satisfy consumers, and all the while, billions of planets beyond this sky vanish without ever being discovered, humanity lost in this excessively earthbound culture of life. How long will this continue—until resources are exhausted? Humans recognize the value of something only in its absence, for while it lies within reach, the mind lacks the faculty to appreciate it. But when the world has become completely uninhabitable, when it has truly turned into a literal hell, even mourning will no longer be possible.
― Atrona Grizel
I see a cluster of noise machines in the distance. They are approaching here as a crowd—a group of friends. The moment I notice them, I panic with a sense of anticipation: “That thing will happen again. They will suffocate me by bringing me down to their level again.” They come closer. Meanwhile, the uneasiness inside me intensifies in anticipation. Then they fully enter the space I am in, and the place—which had previously been as quiet as a library—suddenly turns into something like a disco, full of noise and clamor. The words “metaphysics,” “cosmology,” and “dimension” are automatically replaced by “car,” “sandwich,” and “lipstick.” My mind immediately shuts itself off and does not open again until this disaster passes. After some time spent in mere endurance, that cluster of machines moves on and disappears from sight again. Thus my mind opens itself again, as if looking at the sunlight from among the ruins, and freely continues its passion for questioning the universe beyond the world of the earthbound. What happened just now? Nothing… only an unstoppable tsunami wave predictably came and predictably passed.
― Atrona Grizel
There is a difference between the way young people walk and the way the elderly walk. The moment I focus on it, I notice it clearly, even if I cannot give it a precise name. After all, both are simply walking, are they not? But the elderly have already seen the world and have reached a point where they no longer care deeply about it, whereas the young are still open to the world because they remain in the stage of discovery. This difference reflects itself in their behavior and even in the way their feet touch the ground. And in this way of walking I sense inexperience—the outward expression of the idealism of a novice youth who has not yet lived through anything maddening. None of them carry the weight of the world. On none of their faces is there a trace of someone who has spent years in solitude. For, quite frankly, they care only about wandering and enjoying themselves, and the places they walk through are most likely connected to that. After all, even from this small detail of walking, one can sense the condition of a person’s inner world in such a way.
― Atrona Grizel
The state prevents me from being independent, and thus I am forced to eat its food and wear its clothes. Then, indirectly, it says: “I provide these things; you are alive thanks to me.” It forcibly sends me to school so that in the future I may become a form of labor that can be exploited. If I refuse these rules, it may even go so far as to strip me of my citizenship, because the state always tells the individual through its laws: “You owe this life to me.” Yet the individual clearly did not choose to be born within the state. Everyone who is born is given a name like the tag on a dog’s collar and is placed into files like products classified into sections. The state wishes to bind its people to itself, because the only way a state can survive is by absorbing and suppressing its population. In this way, cultures emerge. This can even be seen in the fact that a French person generally displays different traits from an English person, or a German from a Russian, because the principal factor behind these differences among people is the state itself. Each state must distinguish itself from others in order to preserve its identity, and it does this by creating a culture of its own and by eliminating most possible paths that would allow people to deviate from this dominant culture, through mechanisms such as psychiatry, prisons, or social norms that lead to the exclusion and dehumanization of those who do not conform. Nationalism is the defense of this culture, and thus slaves who were born into the state without any choice come to believe that they are free enough to defend their own servitude. It seems to me that nationalism and ignorance are directly proportional. As Schopenhauer said: a person who has nothing left to be proud of begins to take pride in their ethnicity. I have often imagined renouncing my citizenship simply to escape this cage altogether, even while remaining physically inside it, because the system of borders and governments does not allow me to flee to another country merely by walking there. Yet the state does not permit statelessness unless I accept another citizenship—that is, unless I remain within the mold of “nationality.” Even if I were to leave it, I could reach a point where I would be unable to meet even my most basic needs, because states, quite openly, care only about their own extensions, meaning the citizens bound to them. Beyond that, if I happen to be on the territory of another state while belonging to a nationality it does not desire, the people of that state—whose identity as an extension is entirely dependent on the state—can even lynch and kill me. Things called “humanity” or “cooperation” are illusions.
― Atrona Grizel