Others see culture; I see pattern.
Others see culture; I see pattern.
― Atrona Grizel
Everyone is justified in doing whatever they do, and precisely for that reason they are all worthy only of being despised.
― Atrona Grizel
There is no consciousness in the world. This is the world of the unconscious. They run the world. And yet how does this world still remain standing? How does everything not collapse even for a moment—how does this cycle never pause for even an instant? This means that having influence does not require consciousness.
― Atrona Grizel
I see a happy, kind, and warm-hearted person, and since people already possess those qualities in abundance, my mind places them into the mental mold reserved for such creatures—then I walk away without feeling any deep interest. Later I see someone who is sullen, rude, and cold. And because I know that smiling is easy, but that stubbornly remaining sullen—even while among others—is often a kind of display of consciousness and courage, I become interested in it with the excitement of a discovery. In other words… the virtues called “happiness,” “kindness,” and “warmth” are effective only as long as the social contract that values them remains in force—not because they are intrinsic qualities. And since I have long since torn up that contract, I can fall in love with anything society hates, simply for that reason alone.
― Atrona Grizel
Y: “Sit with your arms open. Don’t curl up.”
X: “Why?”
Y: “Because if you sit like that, you’ll feel insecure. People will see you that way too.”
X: “Then I take the authority to define the meaning of this sitting posture away from society and claim it for myself. I declare it a sign of confidence, and because of that confidence, I don’t care what people think about it.”
― Atrona Grizel
I could watch the slow, unhurried, shuffling walk of an old person for hours.
― Atrona Grizel
I am not writing for those who, after a long day at work, turn on a screen and read soothing stories to relax on the couch; I write for those who deliberately embrace unease, who seek out disquiet and invite it almost with longing. In other words, for no one.
― Atrona Grizel
Once I witnessed a large open-air event composed entirely of young people. I felt as if I would die from nausea, because as age decreases, predictability increases—and with it superficiality, and with that my own sense of alienation. They all wear revealing clothes, and instead of drawing me toward them, this pushes me away from them, because by doing so they send only this message: “You do not belong to us, and we do not belong to you.” I do not mean this in a malicious way; I mean it in the sense that someone who does not live for sex will always remain detached from the petty concerns of youth. Perhaps in that square filled with thousands of hedonistic cattle, there was in fact no real person there at all, and all that noise existed only to suppress this truth. If they had all suddenly stopped and looked at me, the first and only things they would measure would be my height, my weight, my hair color, which brand of T-shirt I was wearing, whether I had earrings, whether there were tattoos on my arms, how large my shoes were, and so on. That is all. Their interest in things beyond outward appearance amounts to only these: How many followers do I have on social media? Are my grades good? Am I popular? How many lovers have I had? Do I have stories in my past where I proved my courage by drinking alcohol or using drugs? There is no intelligence except the practical and social kind, no artistry except nudity and anime, no thought except bodily concerns and the pressure to belong, no poetry except lustful fetishes and revenge fantasies, no sacredness of solitude, no respect for silence. Because an entire youth values none of these things—because nature wants them to be this way. And unless science reshapes nature, this degenerate type of youth, which has never allowed any era of history even a moment to breathe, will continue to exist even thousands of years from now, because instincts do not change. Education cannot remove them either, since it can only tame them, which is not reliable in the long term. The entire world revolves around games of love. There is no collective purpose. Humanity should already have been conquering space by now, yet it remains stuck on Earth. Because everyone who is born is simply left as they are. No one interferes with them. Yet whatever is left completely free tends to become unruly. Youth is like that as well. Families release these creatures into the world the way chickens lay eggs. Even if I understand their indifference to doing so, I still appeal to at least a little conscience: by doing this they lower the already poor quality of youth even further, poisoning its atmosphere until the air becomes almost impossible to breathe for a lucid teenager.
― Atrona Grizel
Songs exist. Films exist. Games exist. Why? Because life, in its raw and unprocessed state, is unbearably dull for the human mind. To escape this boredom, people must constantly manufacture stimuli for themselves. They surround their perception with sound, images, stories, and artificial challenges—anything that can distract them. Yet the boredom never truly disappears, and this is precisely why humans must always create new meanings each day. It cannot be escaped, because it is rooted in a fundamental rule of life. If a human being could truly overcome it, then music, films, and games would become unnecessary. A person would be able to enjoy existence as it is, without any external amplification. But consciousness does not accept nature as it is. It behaves like an insatiable creature. It always demands more—more intensity, more novelty, more stimulation. From this endless hunger emerge inventions, technologies, and cultures. They multiply endlessly. At their core, all of them are attempts to fill a void beneath existence. This is because the ordinary human mind, which is naturally the most widespread one, lacks the courage to look directly into that void without fear.
― Atrona Grizel
I cannot bleed into the noise of people, because my mind knows how to slip through it. As a result, even in chaotic and loud festivals or events, my attention inevitably drifts to the benches standing there, to the trees, to the clouds, or at the very least to the ground beneath everyone’s feet. And I see how silent they are, how indifferent they remain despite this meaningless commotion. I feel a deep connection with them. Because I exist on the same dimension as they do, the noise of humans reaches me as if from a distance, even when I am standing among them. These inanimate objects open themselves to me more than people do. So I flow toward their silence through the crowd, and no matter how alive the square tries to appear, it makes me feel as though it has been completely abandoned.
― Atrona Grizel
I want to take the world seriously, but when I remember the truth—that if I were to close my eyes and, upon opening them, find myself in another dimension, perhaps on a planet beyond the universe, within just a few seconds, I would never think of this planet again, let alone remember anything within it or belonging to it—I recall my complete lack of belonging to humanity, and consequently, that no matter how much I might wish to, I could never feel genuine respect for it. If such a thing were to happen, my reaction would not be surprise, worry, or longing; it would be this: “Finally.” I suppose that alone is enough to explain everything.
― Atrona Grizel
When I say, “I am drowning in my pain,” the only thing most people understand is that I am not numbing myself—that, in their view, I am suffering “unnecessarily.” In the most direct terms, they interpret this as meaning that I don’t take drugs to get high or drink alcohol to get drunk. In their world, pain remains nothing more than pain, and this is what produces addicts and drunkards. There exists an entire adult culture that goes beyond merely normalizing substances like cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs as responses to pain; it presents them as something “cool” and even treats their use as proof of courage and endurance. Naturally, if I am suffering greatly and complaining about it, yet still not numbing my mind, then in their eyes I become a “loser,” and they do not regard me as an adult. It is a culture in which only the outward expression of pain is recognized as pain. Instead of acknowledging an inner struggle, what is celebrated are rebelliously consumed drinks and cigarettes, accompanied by the listening of “tough-guy” songs. Imagine a pitiful man whose mind turns only to sex with “chicks” at bars and party tables filled with alcohol and drugs after an exhausting day in a boring workplace, because the only things that soothe him have become these kinds of temporary pleasures: he has suffered all day, thinks of nothing else, becomes completely primal, and after having sex like animals all night, he simply collapses and falls asleep—only to repeat the same routine again. What strikes me, and turns my stomach, is this: fatigue reveals the most natural state of humans—primitive chimpanzees who think of nothing beyond their own comfort, seeking relief solely for their personal well-being when they are deprived of it.
― Atrona Grizel
People open those little light-emitting devices in their hands, type anything into the internet, and a flood of information appears before them. Then they read. They absorb it. And afterward they begin spreading it everywhere, proclaiming their “vast knowledge.” They want to have opinions about everything like madmen, and the possibilities are so abundant that, in the end, a new zombie generation emerges—one that grasps bits and pieces of everything yet fully understands nothing. There should have been secret libraries; indeed, all high-quality libraries should have been reserved only for intellectual elites, with the masses deliberately kept away so that the purity of knowledge could be preserved. Acquiring knowledge should not be easy, yet the culture of comfort that has enveloped the world keeps making it easier and easier. Now there is no need to even go to a library; moving your fingers is enough, which only insults knowledge. Now there is a new kind of ignorance: “knowing” everything.
― Atrona Grizel
A person filled with self-hatred thinks like this when facing a partner: “I don’t have a good job. I’m not good-looking. Why would you love me? Everyone else left to find someone better. You will leave too. Why would you choose me?” When I see such a sentence, I am bewildered. How can it not occur to them that this sentence is actually a reflection of the decay of relationships in this entire rotten age? Do people not realize that they only come together for sensory and bodily pleasure? Or perhaps they do realize it, but chasing pleasure has become so fashionable, and trends have become the only thing people care about, that they accept this as the default reality and measure themselves accordingly. If you have money, you are loved. If you have a car, you are loved. If you have a house, you are loved. If you have muscles, you are loved. But what do any of these things have to do with one’s true soul? What happened to the hidden loves of the poor—the loves of couples who live in solitude and uncertainty, known only to themselves? They wanted nothing. One was a janitor, the other a maid, and yet they could be happier than princes and princesses, because they needed neither money nor a car nor a house nor muscles.
― Atrona Grizel