If I were a scientist, I would devote myself to developing an immunity-building medicine against the viruses of this enormous zoo—filled from top to bottom with monkeys—that they call “society.”
If I were a scientist, I would devote myself to developing an immunity-building medicine against the viruses of this enormous zoo—filled from top to bottom with monkeys—that they call “society.”
― Atrona Grizel
Y: “Why do you love me?”
X: “There is no reason.”
Y: “Then you don’t love me.”
X: “No. True love is always without a why.”
― Atrona Grizel
Yes, humans constantly seek purpose and meaning, and the feeling of having “found” them brings satisfaction, because they have not yet attained the capacity to endure unmeasured freedom: to exist without purpose or meaning…
― Atrona Grizel
When I learned that no one was with me—and that no one ever would be—my relationships became entirely pragmatic. Even when I say that I love someone, what I am secretly doing is extracting certain symbols, ideas, and images from that person for future exploitation so that when they disappear and I return to my solitude, I can cope with this eternal abandonment through an even more intensified imagination.
― Atrona Grizel
What truly prevents despair is not “hope,” but ensuring that the gatekeeper in the mind—the one who prevents doors from being closed one by one—does not resign or get dismissed. When a mind comes to see the reality it possesses as the only reality that exists or could ever exist, and becomes incapable of imagining any other future, that is when it turns against itself.
― Atrona Grizel
I am thinking about the revenge I will take on this society. How will it happen? Or will it even happen? If it does, I don’t imagine it will be something grand. It won’t be a direct act either. It will be more like waiting for an opportunity to fall into my hands and seizing it. Just as certain Western physicists, convinced they were on the “wrong side,” began leaking information to the Soviets when they reached positions of influence—expressing the frustration they had long carried within. These are the lucky ones who have found the means to project their entirely irrelevant personal emotions onto the outside world through bureaucratic offices. I will consider doing something similar as my duty. But no one must hear of it. I will only wait. Because the feeling inside me is there. It has always been there and always will be. I have no loyalty to this country. I wish it were wiped entirely off the map, replaced by the sea.
― Atrona Grizel
I don’t think I could get along with anyone who uses a vehicle or smokes. And what a coincidence that, wherever I turn my head in this society, the scene is always the same: cigarettes blowing smoke into the air, held by hands dangling out of vehicles, a fusion of both car and cigarette culture...
― Atrona Grizel
The question asked to children—“Which team do you support?”—should be seen as indoctrination. It prepares innocent children to be “integrated” into a society where football culture exists, where groups of animals around nothing more than a ball can go insane and even reach the point of killing each other. Even a child who takes this question seriously and gives any answer should be considered a source of concern, because it is one of the earliest signs of sacrificing thought for the thrill of excitement. Just as I feel attachment to outsider writers and radical philosophers, the people here feel allegiance to sports teams—sometimes to the point of fanaticism. The origin is the same, but the outcomes differ; the same mechanism works in two different ways. This is because there is no real reading habit here. Finding someone who actually reads a book is like finding water in a desert, because the overwhelming majority prefer one-minute knowledge paragraphs on social media. This society favors speed and superficiality, not depth or slowness—just like every other society of the modern era. Consequently, writers and philosophers are completely alien to this geography. People cannot construct their own worlds, and so they gravitate toward football teams that require almost no effort to feel attached to. Matches are watched everywhere: in classrooms, cafés, waiting rooms, even on buses. Running. Kicking. Shouting. And they call this culture. Science and art are inherently at odds with this society, and it is no surprise that these fields are virtually nonexistent: this society has developed to survive without them, a Stone Age society that does not even notice their absence.
― Atrona Grizel
Why are swear words so relieving? After all, they are just simple words, aren’t they? Behind such words lie social meanings, and the human mind—carrying those meanings, often unconsciously—associates them with those layers of significance. When someone curses, those meanings are activated, and the person feels a sense of release. In a sense, this is a form of freedom of expression, because there are no words as strangely powerful as swear words. Saying “pen” relieves no one. But when a person curses, their stress may actually lessen. If one does not want someone to go mad, this must not be prevented. Yet another fact remains: this is not a society where freedom of expression truly exists. Those who speak their own language—however coarse it may be—rather than the language of society will inevitably be killed: either through exclusion, a kind of social death, or in the most literal sense, by having their lives taken for being “rude.” The ironic thing is that everyone curses. In itself, this is not really a problem. And since the state cannot reach the inner world in this way, it only bans the expression of swearing in the name of “politeness.” But doesn’t this only intensify mental suffering? All those verbal, psychological, and emotional battles—whether within the individual or between individuals—become the main outlets, since physical violence and open swearing are forbidden. That anger inevitably finds a way to be released, after all. It’s something like a “polite revenge”—like teaching a lion to meow so it won’t roar—but that lion will always leak its lionhood through the cracks.
― Atrona Grizel
At school I was always treated as an unpopular, lazy student; at home, as a disrespectful teenager who was oblivious to the world. And since there was nowhere else—since my life existed only between home and school—naturally no one ever mirrored me. My mind developed inside a complete vacuum. Now my life does not begin among people, but rather when people disappear, because I did not develop with them but parallel to them. There was a moment when, after spending the entire day at school exposed to an environment that constantly belittled me and openly declared that I was “stupid,” I would come home exhausted. I had spent all my energy simply trying to prevent my inner world from being corrupted. Naturally my eyes were sunken, with dark circles beneath them. When I asked my family if I could skip school the next day, the only thing they saw was supposed “computer addiction” in my tired eyes—and so the computer, one of the only refuges I possessed in this hellish world, was taken away from me. If I had resisted and opened my inner world to them further, the only thing they would have heard—no matter what I said—would have been, "I am in depression.” The expressions on their faces are impermeable. I know people like this very well, having been forced to live under the same roof with them. You cannot tell such people anything. There is no communication. Once they have classified you, the matter is settled. People prefer categories to possibilities, and if you tell them they are wrong, you will simply be accused of being “childish,” because, to them, the only reality belongs to themselves—they know everything. They always spoke in my place, throwing out claims as if they knew me completely. Now they shamelessly wait for me to speak. But I remain silent, because I know that nothing can be explained. They will continue stomping around, because it is impossible for them to understand the language of the other side. They will interpret this as a sign of victory and emphasize even more that I must be wrong. Since I do not oppose them openly, they feel no deep curiosity at all; they simply decide what I am according to their wishes and go on telling others their version of it. Behind the force that drives people to commit murders lies a mechanism like this, because most people are too primitive to understand words. If I had the right and the means to kill everyone who disturbs my peace, there would not be a single person left around me. And if the police arrested me afterward, I would say exactly this: “I destroyed them because their mere existence was an insult to me.” Sometimes I truly think: if I were to commit suicide, why shouldn’t I take one or a few gorillas with me? Why should I go to death empty-handed? But even that would be attributing too much humanity to them. Gorillas do not even deserve to be killed.
― Atrona Grizel
If I had a button in my hand that, when pressed, would destroy everything—this world, this universe, in short, everything—I would press it without a moment’s hesitation. For by pressing it, I would also have destroyed even the desire not to press it.
― Atrona Grizel
Nietzsche reminds me of a baby in a bathtub, playing with toy ships—making them soar, then sink, producing strange “battle effects” with his mouth, utterly absorbed in the game with solemn intensity. I say this not in a belittling sense, but in awe. Could there be a more sacred image? To him, the toy ships are not toys—they are destroyers, and he is their captain. I imagine a Nietzsche, regressed to childhood, playing with toys as if they bore the symbols of command: lining up his soldiers, toppling them, rearranging them, rejoicing as though he had conquered the world. He maintained this trait until his death. Was this not already what had happened after 1889? In a way, his essence had revealed itself: that madman who believed himself to be God, and for that very reason alone was godlike. Yes, he died happy, because he never lost his innocent side. Nietzsche died as a happy baby who saw himself as an emperor, and that is precisely what makes him Nietzsche: for if he were to see himself as merely a baby, what would remain of his fire?
― Atrona Grizel