To be able to think, distance is necessary, because thinking means not living in the life in which everyone is imprisoned.
To be able to think, distance is necessary, because thinking means not living in the life in which everyone is imprisoned.
― Atrona Grizel
I am one of those who would be trapped inside the most tedious routine even in the most fascinating age.
― Atrona Grizel
The things that used to cause me emotional breakdowns in adolescence have, as I’ve grown older, become things I can no longer get angry about—even if I wanted to—because I can no longer ignore the mechanisms underlying them. Unhappy people resort to bullying. Someone who has broken up with their partner tries to ease their pain by hurling insults at others. A person who does not think avoids thinking so as not to subject themselves to torment. The one who is constantly entertained seeks distraction to escape the emptiness buried deep within their soul. There is always another side to the coin, and I always see that side, because I never live on the surface of things. And unless one remains on the surface, one cannot feel anger toward what lies there; one can only contemplate what lies beneath it. After all, once no one can be held accountable for anything—not even their own actions, since everyone is essentially a slave to certain conditions—who is left to be angry at? The moment I feel anger, I cannot help but think I have overlooked something crucial. Although anger is one of the most natural human states, the fact that a human being is, in a sense, inherently irrational makes anger itself a sign of that irrationality. To truly feel anger, one must lack awareness, not possess it. Before anything else, this single fact is sufficient: no one was born by their own will, and, therefore, they are free to be anything.
― Atrona Grizel
“The ability to appeal to the masses:” the art of communicating with chimpanzees.
― Atrona Grizel
In slave societies where everyone works like dogs, working has generally lost its value and, therefore, actually, does not amount to much—because if a society were truly advanced, it would not be dependent on a routine that compels people to spend the entire day on the job. Contrary to appearances, the most “hardworking” societies are in fact the most dogmatic because they do not think, whereas the most “still” societies are the most innovative—because, perhaps with the help of technology, or through various social policies, they may have shortened working hours for people and devoted the remaining time to philosophy, science, and art. If the opposite were true—that those who “work a lot” were truly “hardworking”—then countries like India would now be the most developed societies, while Scandinavian countries would be in a state of not even being able to find food or clothing. There is such a thing as unnecessary work, and a large portion of Indians’ time is devoted to such things—for example, cooking food, cleaning the house, picking children up from school, going to the market, and so on. All of these are a waste of time. In Scandinavia, by contrast, meals can be prepared in advance, homes can be cleaned by robots, children can come home from school by bus, and orders can be placed from home. What happens to the remaining time? It is devoted to thought… or to leisure… but at the very least, the likelihood of time being devoted to thought increases considerably.
― Atrona Grizel
I know that as soon as the day begins, I will construct a new scenario in my head that will last for hours. A new day means a new dream—that is, a new life. Because there is no life waiting for me outside.
― Atrona Grizel
When my organs rebel against me, I feel a desire to have been designed as a machine—flawless and free of illness. Yet even if I were a machine, my systems would go bankrupt.
― Atrona Grizel
The label that society attaches, in order to prevent the words and ideas of writers and thinkers—those who think even slightly differently, who accept this difference and dwell on it rather than merely calling it “difference”—from being taken seriously, because everyone fears the one who is “mad”: cult leader.
― Atrona Grizel
I am an ear, while others are mouths. A mouth says everything yet hears nothing, while an ear hears everything yet says nothing.
― Atrona Grizel
I have observed people walking so completely absorbed in their phones that now, the moment I touch any phone, I feel as if I have committed a crime, because I am disgusted on a somatic level at holding that demonic device. A computer feels safer. Yet, if people roamed around glued to portable computers and I were constantly exposed to it, I would probably start to feel disgusted by that as well—but ultimately, because it allows me to forget all these uglinesses, I would likely compartmentalize these observations and forget them the moment I enter my room and immerse myself in my computer.
― Atrona Grizel
It is very telling that pornography stars have sex in rooms displaying the United States flag and models wear lingerie bearing its colours. At parties, bars, clubs, brothels, and countless other places designed for fleeting bodily pleasures, the flag that seems most fitting is, I suppose, the American flag—because that is their source anyway. The modern age has turned the flag of the United States into a porn flag.
― Atrona Grizel
All my fantasies, at their core, revolve around this: that I would remain exactly as I am without changing, yet be born and live in radically different eras and radically different environments. Because I know I was designed very well for something; what that thing is, I cannot precisely identify in this modern age. But I know this much—if I had not been born into this concrete city, this limited social environment, this superficial culture, and this monotonous cycle, then even if I remained myself, one thing would have been different: I would have been able to externally express myself. In this specific life, at every moment I live, I cannot help but feel as though I have been barred from life itself, because it is like a person who is in fact a king never being seated on his throne and therefore never being able to be treated as a king. The sluggish world of this boring dimension uses only a very small fraction of me, and that is hardly something that can be tolerated in the long term. If some kind of “game of dice” is played before birth, then I must have surely lost that gamble.
― Atrona Grizel
Once, I entered a shopping mall. I knew what would happen: I would be subjected to torture without torture. And that is exactly what happened. Everywhere there were shopping carts, shopping bags, provocatively dressed women, tattooed men, people wearing earrings, fashionable clothes, and dyed hair, and all of them were either drinking something, eating something, or inevitably talking—and most importantly, all of them carried phones in their hands like accessories. None of them looked around. Everyone, after a while, was thinking about the café, restaurant, or entertainment venue they would soon enter, because being in such a setting involuntarily imposes this kind of momentary thought on a person, and the reason many people relax in such places—that is, enjoy shopping and the like—is precisely this suspension of the mind. I feel ashamed of eating fast food because these are American foods. Yet the people there think only of taste, not that the meals they consume are part of cultural imperialism. They all stand in line. I am amazed that, while standing in that queue, they do not sink into the ground with shame. I deliberately look at some people’s faces as they walk by, because I know even their reflexes are automatic. They are stimulating their brains to release dopamine, and this creature called a human loves it. I look into their eyes because I see this mechanism. They, however, pass by. They have little time to notice other beings. I watch those sitting at the tables. They keep gorging themselves. They amuse themselves with their phones. Most likely, after eating, they will go out and think about another shopping mall they will enter. None of them possesses any awareness of existence. They are merely living. Is this life? To me, it feels more like a society of hedonistic zombies engineered by the consumerist dystopia of the 21st century.
― Atrona Grizel
No one prizes thought above pleasure. Most of society is concerned with living the one life they believe they possess as “fully” as possible and then dying; speaking to them about constructing their own values or dismantling religions and ideologies is like telling a monkey to give up its banana. Those who think are not very different, because their brains are shaped by the same structural conditioning—only in the opposite direction: they think not out of duty, but because they derive pleasure from thinking; they entertain themselves through thought. Yet if their brains were reshaped, they too would become like the rest of society, because this condition is entirely deterministic. Everyone attends to their own pleasure and automatically gravitates toward whatever gives them satisfaction.
― Atrona Grizel
A thing may be good for the individual yet harmful to the outside world—and still be good. More than that: even something the outside world rejects, even something it has seemingly refuted in a scientific manner, remains true if the individual believes in it to the very end.
― Atrona Grizel
When I am proud of a work of mine, the thought of death immediately comes to my mind and I immediately purge myself of my pride by thinking that I have once again become too absorbed in empty, worldly things. Because what will happen to that work after I die? Will it remain with me forever? No. It will, perhaps, be a relic that will still exist in the world after I die. But I am not even interested in what comes after I die. I write only because spending life completely empty—considering that this would be a torture lasting decades—would be extremely boring. That is to say... I write not to be remembered, but to pass the time.
― Atrona Grizel
The most effective way to change people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior toward you is to win the lottery unexpectedly: those who hate you begin composing poems in your praise; those who wish for your death start comparing you to a god; those who constantly insult you suddenly “realize their mistakes” and fall to their knees before you. The ultimate resolution to all unhappiness, relationship conflicts, and blood feuds is not a fallacy like “mutual love and respect,” but simply material wealth. If someone is insulting you, beating you, and even trying to kill you, know that the only problem is that you have not satisfied them and sent them away by giving them money—because there are very few people who would refuse that. Everyone is nothing more than an opportunistic worm, and the fact that people can undergo radical transformations when someone close to them acquires a vast amount of money is proof of this—because that worm sleeps inside everyone until an opportunity appears, and once it does, it seizes the person completely.
― Atrona Grizel