One whose thought expands abandons the world and passes into the universe.
One whose thought expands abandons the world and passes into the universe.
― Atrona Grizel
At times, I feel as though I am on the verge of madness—as if the vastness of my mind will spill beyond my skull, and what frightens me in those moments is this: outside, there is nothing that could withstand such a flood—only a flat, defenseless expanse.
― Atrona Grizel
When I look at the world from a bird’s-eye view, I feel not more “expansive,” but more “narrow,” because I am astonished at how an entire life can be gathered into this tiny hemisphere—and how, while living inside it, it appears, through illusion, vast and enormous.
― Atrona Grizel
The Nazis were justified in being racist, but because this racism was biological and political, it was completely absurd. Whereas if the same hostile hierarchy were stripped of its ethnic and ideological nature and intellectualized—meaning that instead of Jews or communists, the morons and the imbeciles were eliminated—humanity could move to a higher dimension. Yet no doctrine resembling this has appeared so far, except for religious ones that are related in a certain respect but still vastly different. Isn’t the reason the world is in its current state—that maybe 9 out of 10 people carry no functional brain—precisely this: allowing everyone to live and reproduce without discrimination?
― Atrona Grizel
If the Sun were human, sunflowers would instantly turn their backs on it and keep their faces stubbornly fixed in the opposite direction all day long.
― Atrona Grizel
There are many creatures around me whose bodies I feel the urge to chop up as if chopping salad, then throw into a cauldron to boil in bubbling water, and afterward, vomit them out just as I have eaten and swallowed them—a feast, not for pleasure, but purely for a somatic disgust, a fantasy revolving around revulsion.
― Atrona Grizel
Schopenhauer: “A high degree of intellect tends to make man unsocial.” Yes. But one word feels wrong: “A high degree of intellect inevitably makes man unsocial.”
― Atrona Grizel
To those who constantly pressure me to get a driver’s license as if it were a vital necessity—and who, by doing so, want to pull me into the car culture they themselves have assimilated into—I have a question: “Can you imagine Diogenes driving a Formula car?”
― Atrona Grizel
I do not understand why people cannot take care of themselves psychologically. They worry. They become sad. They grow angry. They feel jealousy. Whatever it may be. And these states reach incomprehensible proportions, growing strong enough to replace their very identity, and naturally they end up in psychiatrists’ offices. They do this simply because they cannot live with pain, that is all. Why can I speak with such certainty? Because I have suffered as well. I experienced what are called “panic attacks”—perhaps in a relatively lower dose, but still chronically, every day, for years. I also felt what is called “anxiety” as a weight in my lungs whenever I was surrounded by people, in every second of my existence. And the moment I looked at any person’s face, the first thought that came to my mind was that if I revealed my thoughts, they would mock me and amuse themselves at my expense. So I stayed away from crowded places; yet because I was confined to such places, I simply closed myself off and withdrew inward—but the condition was still there. So I have never had any business with medication. I do not need to take a “happiness pill” in order to be happy. Nor do I need to rid myself of my sadness, because it is my treasure. That is precisely why, instead of feeling lonely in an emotional sense, I feel loneliness in a cognitive sense. In other words, the last time I truly understood that I felt lonely was perhaps at the beginning of my adolescence, because in the years that followed, this solitude settled into my brain as something that defines me, becoming almost like a background feature. I got completely used to it. I am still alone, yes—but now I feel less lonely, because being solitary has become my “duty.” This also means that psychiatry simply does not know what to do with people who accept their pain—even when it hurts—and integrate it into their sense of self, not in a destructive way but more as an existential role. Such noble souls are, of course, very few, because being able to do this requires the courage to separate oneself from society, since society is the enemy of solitude—and therefore the enemy of existence itself.
― Atrona Grizel
There is something that disturbs me. Maybe an “object.” Maybe a “creature.” I close my eyes… then open them… and whatever that disturbing thing is, it is still there. Even though I want to erase it from there, the external world does not respect my inner reality. Yet when one closes and opens their eyes, a person should be able to find themselves in different worlds each time. To be trapped every single time in the narrow one offered by the physical world alone—this should be illegal.
― Atrona Grizel
Emil Cioran’s house… These days I look at photographs of that place, and when he wrote that "upon hearing the news that electricity would come to their village, some of the villagers claimed it was a sign of the apocalypse,” I see that he had, in a way, foreseen the future: tractors, trucks, cars, metal streetlights…
― Atrona Grizel
Even when my family says, “I love you,” all I hear is, “You are the problem.” And my interpretation feels valid to the degree of a mathematical proof, because the kind of family they are is plainly evident.
― Atrona Grizel
When I say, “There is no one in this vast world I can talk to,” people immediately place the blame on me. Yes—it's probably because I don’t know how to talk, right? Because the fault is always in the individual, while society is always wonderful and flawless. And the very reason I “cannot speak” is precisely this: the kind of people who would truly take this sentence personally have not yet been born into the world.
― Atrona Grizel
People pick up their phones, retreat into a corner, and begin to scroll—bursting into laughter with every flick of their fingers. They start to amuse themselves like infants. Beyond their heads stretches an entire universe, yet they remain completely unaware of it, and in truth, they are quite content inside their tiny worlds, because their real aim is to escape from thinking. I watch them. I look at their faces. There is no sign of awareness. The fingers keep moving. Then they pause on another video to play once more. Then again. And then that person will laugh again—collapsing into fits of laughter, almost falling to the ground. This has become their narcotic. All modern friendships—especially adolescent ones—revolve around this single central activity: scrolling through screens and laughing together at whatever amusing fragments appear there. In reality, they may not even know what it means to be a friend. No one has taught them, and they themselves are incapable of learning it on their own anyway. Friendship, in this view, belongs to earlier times; it can seem almost extinct in the modern age, as many relationships risk becoming little more than “dopamine pacts” at their core.
― Atrona Grizel
To hurl a child into the world from a womb and then begin watching, almost like observing a pitiable circus animal, indifferently wondering, “What will it do?”
― Atrona Grizel
I remain silent because people put pressure on me, and I know none of them will understand me. Yet people punish me precisely because I am silent, and in doing so they merely reveal their lack of understanding. This only deepens my silence—and the prejudice directed toward it—because in the language of their tiny world, no one communicates through “telepathy.” The fact that I have not been understood by even a single person is, actually, an insult to everyone around me, because it indirectly reveals the level of society’s mental capacities. Simple minds are merely bewildered in the face of depth and complexity, and I have not encountered even a single “precious” mind that truly interested me since I entered adolescence.
― Atrona Grizel
This society is scarcely capable of being understood by others, for it seems to possess no true reflection elsewhere in the world. It stands without a mirror. And so, it collapses inward upon itself. In other countries, ignorance is treated as a flaw; here, it becomes warmth—sometimes even a source of amusement. What, then, could outsiders possibly comprehend of such a culture?ne
― Atrona Grizel
Grigori Perelman: “Emptiness is everywhere, and it can be calculated”—perhaps. Yet the sheer prevalence of unconsciousness would bewilder even mathematics itself.
― Atrona Grizel
To become angry and release that anger by striking objects should be allowed; it should be done abundantly in solitude for the sake of a healthy mind. But for society, this is a taboo. No one permits another person to pour themselves out. The individual is expected to suppress everything. And suppression breeds mental illness and fractures relationships, because anger has nowhere else to go. I remember that after an exceptionally terrible day, when I locked myself in my room shouting, "Screw this goddamn society,” and began pounding my desk, my family gathered at the door. They started banging on it as well, even forcing their way inside—and that only intensified my rage, because they too were simply part of that same sick societal system. My vision blurred with an almost primal fury. Even living on the streets seemed preferable to rotting in a hell where I felt like I worked sixteen hours a day. What they did not understand is simple: a person like that needs permission to empty their anger against a wall until it is spent, because such intense moments are rarely permanent. Yet society, enclosed within its narrow notions of “politeness” and “consideration,” struggles to grasp this. It will see only a “madman.” And yet the one who has been struck by the blows of the world and reacts with anger is performing something profoundly human. It is those who never become angry at all who should truly inspire fear.