There is a certain pleasure in never having felt belonging: nothing can bind one to the world.

There is a certain pleasure in never having felt belonging: nothing can bind one to the world.

― Atrona Grizel

My writings have this peculiar trait: because I write with complete selectivity, most of those who read them are already wandering in the depths I traverse; those on the surface, after reading a few lines, perceive the density and intensity and, bewildered, simply abandon them—like a monolith whose meaning only certain souls can grasp. I know I will never be widely read, and I take this as an achievement, for it means my writings work: since genuine depth is unmarketable, they keep the herd instinctively at bay, as if a spell rests upon them. I can’t even say that I do this intentionally; by nature, I speak a higher language.

― Atrona Grizel

There are two kinds of reactions to routine: Sisyphus and Gregor Samsa. And what of those who possess Samsa’s alienation and, like Sisyphus, stubbornly insist on sustaining it?

― Atrona Grizel

The ordinary social world knows Isaac Newton as the “apple man,” whereas he was technically a monk who withdrew into his own world and spent entire days absorbed, almost religiously, in scientific pursuits, so much so that he perhaps could not care about labels society attached to him.

― Atrona Grizel

To make discoveries, there must be no map, because a map means discoveredness.

― Atrona Grizel

There are days when I sit all day doing nothing apparent, and these times are not empty; on the contrary, they are full, because they serve as a kind of subconscious preparation for the days ahead that will be filled with passionate outbursts. A person must be able to have “empty” time.

― Atrona Grizel

I look around me and marvel at how even the elderly have managed to live their entire lives like this without doing anything. They haven’t produced a single thing. By the time I was just fifteen, I already had hundreds of pages of writing. Yet here they are, at fifty, many of them unable even to read or write. How can they live like this? There must be a structural difference in the brain, because what brings them pleasure is not working, but lying down and watching football matches on television. It’s not about judging people by what they produce, but how can a person live for decades without creating any music, without drawing any paintings, without writing anything at all?

― Atrona Grizel

In liberal regimes, lives generally consist of cycles like this: wake up, go to work, work, have fun after work, sleep, and repeat. Totalitarian regimes offer a sense of collective purpose—something these liberal systems cannot provide—and democracies struggle to achieve this because democracy, by its very structure, means fragmentation, which leads to social indifference. You might ask, why is the man standing on the other side of the street there? What purpose does he serve? None. He works a job just to pay his bills. Wearing a suit, he waits at the bus stop. Later he will return home, spend time with his wife, then go to bed, waiting for morning to repeat the same routine. Liberal regimes reduce life to this smallness, because life becomes nothing more than attending to oneself. Yet, when compared to humanity as a whole, the individual is tiny. This is precisely the root of the crises of meaning in modern societies: individuals are deprived of the capacity to create their own meaning, because it has neither been taught to them nor could it be taught without being considered indoctrination. And the state itself is not organized around a collective purpose, such as shaping civilization, but around simple objectives like “ensuring security” and “preserving freedom.” Such hollow liberal societies inevitably push people toward hedonistic lifestyles, because where meaning is absent, pleasure is used as a substitute—romantic shows, flashy clothing, compulsive eating, pornographic games, and countless other distractions. Every failure also belongs to the individual when every choice rests with them, because the state does not define a clear, decisive path for the individual except for mundane topics like schooling and careers, and this, within an environment of excessive stimuli, produces minds devoid of confidence. The real issue, however, is being able to establish a global totalitarian regime that is somehow not corrupt.

― Atrona Grizel

I suppose the USSR’s greatest artistic legacy is neither Futurism nor Realism, but rather the Eastern European aesthetic.

― Atrona Grizel

If the names people give their children are tied to any belief system, I inevitably feel pity for those children, because they are reduced to being called by words that have nothing to do with who they are. Children named with meanings like “Hope,” “Honor,” “Brave,” or “Pious” are reflections of social values. A family that sees hope as a good thing gives that name to their child, thereby ignoring philosophical debates that, for millennia, have rejected hope or regarded it as a mere narcotic. Families that choose names related to honor value being “honorable,” usually associated with traditionalism and conservatism, which indicates that the person is largely removed from an independent, individual mind. A name associated with bravery presents courage as a virtue, even though some thinkers reject both courage and virtue precisely because they are societal constructs. As for names related to piety, there is no need to elaborate: the families are devout and expect their children to be devout as well. In short, giving a name is an assertion of a status and position. The children—unless they possess a rare mind—almost automatically conform to society, raised according to these values their families uphold. Such families can never truly grasp what it means to give a human a name. To them, a child’s name functions as a label reflecting their own values and preferences. Every family does this because society enforces it. Is there anyone without a name? No—everyone is summoned by something. Yet there should be no right to name a child, because to name something is already to assimilate it—to a religion, to a culture, to an ideology. I don’t believe I could ever get along with someone named Muhammad, nor with someone named Benjamin.

― Atrona Grizel

X: “What is your definition of happiness?”

Y: “A villa with a pool, a luxury car, a pet cat, and a beautiful spouse. And yours?”

X: “Not defining it.”

― Atrona Grizel

When I share my writings with the public, my mind remains undernourished, because people are so shallow that they never truly stimulate it. So this time I go instead to places supposedly “designed for deep thought,” to libraries and academies, for example, and share them with the people there. But then I encounter bureaucratic minds instead—mere professors and academics, the sort who can think of nothing beyond “contribution,” “progress,” and career. So what am I supposed to do then? Was reality not supposed to resist such rigid divisions? I carry within me a philosophy of such a kind that all the philosophers of this age—whether ordinary or bureaucratic—would simply stare at it without understanding.

― Atrona Grizel

If someone has produced something that confuses the mind of artificial intelligence, it means they have created something real.

― Atrona Grizel

I am so free to do everything that there is nothing left to do. Everything has been liberated. I can do anything. And precisely because of that, nothing left to be done has any value anymore. If nothing is forbidden, nothing is special. To free the soul is to empty it.

― Atrona Grizel

There has never been a divine place I could withdraw into, drawing inspiration from its sacred silence to write. I’ve never had a private laboratory where I could spend an entire day consumed by excitement. Nor, in the simplest sense, could I even throw myself onto the street when my thoughts became oppressive—because there, too, I would face overload. I only grew up within concrete. Spending years confined to a single room is no small thing. Through it, I’ve developed the capacity for abstraction—the very capacity many prisoners cultivate over time to invent novelty out of nothing. 

― Atrona Grizel

If circumstances had allowed, I might already be a polymath. That is, if I had been exposed to extensive guidance and skill-building along these lines. But isn’t this true for everyone? Everyone is always just a little below their real potential, for if opportunity were abundant, anything could have become of them. The janitor here could have been a musician; the cashier over there could have been an astronomer—if only they had been born into a society that respected their interests and genuinely nurtured them. Instead, only certain people acquire these so-called “noble” professions, because society is clearly incapable of fostering an individual’s genuine interests regardless of their career, regardless of their money, regardless of their race, regardless of their age, and regardless of their ideology.

― Atrona Grizel

To define a person by their profession—for example, saying, “He is a lawyer”—reduces a complex being into a mere function. How would those workaholics who prefer this method of definition describe the Buddha? “He was a meditator.” Like that? Or: “He was an ascetic.” Like that? No… He was the one who had gone beyond what can be defined. From the outside, he seemed to be of no use at all—and the secret of his transcendence lay precisely there: he was without function.

― Atrona Grizel

I enter any forum on the internet. Any one. Because every forum disgusts me, structurally. And as I sift through the heap of trash there, I think: “These are the kinds of people reading your writing.” Because I see how simple-minded they are, how easily angered by trivialities, how they turn the most insignificant things into matters of debate, and so on. Since I am my only point of reality, I forget the banality of the world. Yet, because of them, I remember it again and think that every single word I write on the internet falls into the hands of these chimpanzees. Inevitably, I feel disgust, because there is no other internet world. Shall we do an experiment? Let me send this very text I’m writing now to that forum. What reactions would it provoke? First type: “Lol, bro, that is so funny, but too edgy, smh. Ease your senses. Just go out and talk to a girl.” Second type: “You seem too dark. I am interested in gothic anime. We could do cool manga stuff together.” Third type: “Wtf? You seem to have depression. No one sees the world in such a way. I might suggest you a therapist.” Anyone who realizes that such words and sentences form the language of an entire realm will inevitably feel disgusted at using that language—and that’s why, in that place where I read every kind of writing, I never write a single thing anywhere.

― Atrona Grizel

Modern people are often this lax because they usually have a supportive environment behind them. When I made even the smallest mistake, no one was left willing to look me in the face, and so I was abandoned. And once left alone, I found myself able to think at great length even about the smallest things, which led to the development of an unconscious but constant self-monitoring over my behavior, because I became acutely aware of it. But instead of being left alone with their mistakes and forced to think over them again and again, others were accepted despite those mistakes—for reasons such as the humor of friends or the love of a partner. Yet the paradox is precisely this: that is why they have become so lax, because they no longer even recognize mistakes in themselves, having never developed a sensitivity to them through hardship. There was always someone to lean on. They were always watched over, no matter how much destruction they caused around them. They had the luxury of comfort, and that means a lack of awareness, because awareness is something that grows, deepens, and settles into the self together with chronic emotional pain.

― Atrona Grizel

Interviewer: “Where does that air of pride you have come from?”

Cioran: “I survived.”

Me: “I did not grow ignorant among the ignorant.”

― Atrona Grizel

I prefer my own ignorance to the knowledge of the outside, my own stupidity to the intelligence of the external.

― Atrona Grizel

NULL SIGNAL: (Inspired By Joy Division’s No Love Lost, 1978)

Static screams in the marrow,
A heartbeat thumping a cage.
Concrete teeth gnaw the daylight,
Salt on a blackened page.

Friction in dead machinery,
Noise drowning out the choir.
No warmth inside the wiring,
Just low-volt, rhythmic fire.

Steel on a hollow floorboard,
The door that was never there.
Pulse in a vacant corridor,
Taste of sterilized air.

Eyes like shards of a mirror,
Reflecting a sky with no name.
The silence is getting clearer,
Everything’s exactly the same.

Stuttering neon bruises,
Dancing in heavy shadow.
A hammer hitting the anvil,
A frantic, jagged hollow.

The air is grit and metal,
The sky is unpolished chrome.
Don’t look for a place to settle,
The static is the home.

High-voltage wire is screaming,
No soft or padded cells.
A mouth full of dry copper.
The mechanism fails.

Everything stops.

I could say that I “feel” alienated, but that would be a lie.

“Alienation” isn’t a feeling.

“Alienation” is a belief about my relationship to the world and other people, and belief is a choice.

I choose that belief because it simplifies my life. It spares me the discomfort of confronting my differences from others. It spares me the discomfort of experiencing uncertainty. It spares me the effort of changing my thoughts and actions. It affords me the convenience of playing the victim.

Knowing that alienation is a belief that weakens me, why do I retain it? The fear that accompanies the possibility of change overwhelms me. I don’t know how to process that fear and dissipate it. I can persist in a reasonably comfortable life without exerting the effort to learn how. I therefore stay in my comfort zone.

What I would admit to is being overly vigilant in a world that isn’t calling for it

So where are we?

The Chrome Reliquary

The horizon is a serrated blade of rusted steel,
slicing through a sky the colour of a bruised lung.
Here, the human form is a glitch in the blueprint,
a soft, trembling error standing amidst the pistons.
I am wrapped in a coat of heavy, midnight wool,
a sharp silhouette against the cooling tower’s curve,
clutching the vanity of a well-cut seam
as the world grinds its teeth on the silence.

The Angels are gargoyles of rebar and wire,
perched on the skeletons of abandoned refineries.
Their eyes are the dull glow of dying filaments,
tracking the pulse in my throat like a failing engine.
They don’t offer mercy; they offer measurements,
calculating the exact weight of a soul
stripped of its name and fed to the furnace.

I am the last artisan of an empty ritual,
polishing the brass dials of a clock that has no hands.
My shadow stretches across the oil-slicked floor,
long and elegant, a ghost of the high-life
haunting a landscape of pressurized steam.
We are the beautiful waste of a digital age,
Dandy-gods in a cathedral of scrap metal,
waiting for the final gear to catch and slip.

There is no heaven beyond the smoke stack,
only the shivering majesty of the Angels
as they begin to weld the gates of the sun shut.
I stand perfectly poised in the wreckage,
adjusting my cuffs one last time
before the iron dark becomes absolute.

Tough Homeless Man Shows His EMOTIONAL Side 😢❤️

Wyeth had been in that room, and yet he remembered very little of actually having been there. But then, this was the alienation that people loved to write long posts about online. He felt alienated.

Brandon Taylor, from Minor Black Figures

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

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

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

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

I stare at this mask of epidermal sediment clinging to the bone, hunting for the ghost of the boy I was before time decided to erode my edges.

I press my eyes against this sheath of dying cells and calcium, desperate to find one scrap of that original light not yet smothered by the heavy ink

of the years.

I am looking through a face made of wrinkles and anatomy, trying to catch the eye of a child who existed before the world began its long, slow erasure

of my soul.

- Dato

If one focuses on one thing for too long, it will begin to look strange. One may forget why they gave this thing their attention to begin with, but by the time one is able to avert their attention, everything else will also have begun to look strange. The spell, although now broken, will have broken everything else.

SELF PHONES

Is a cell phone, when used in an illustration, a tangible symbol of the abstract concept “social media” or a synecdoche using a physical part of an also physical, albeit complex and dispersed, object, a part representing the attributes of the whole?

I’ll pass on deciding that, I’ll let it be both. But I will keep it otherwise simple. I will not make a phone a mystical menhir from our stone age…

View On WordPress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Days Grace // Milwaukee (03.05.26)

Three Days Grace - Kill Me Fast

ALIENATION

I’ve been listening through this album at least once per day in anticipation for ther show tomorrow night. Front to back, it’s a fucking banger. Brings me back to their first three albums & how much I love/d them in their entirety. 🖤🤘🏼

Long ass rant about life and stuff ahead, proceed at your own discretion.

Thinking a lot about like, who I wanna be and what I wanna do. It’s a lot. I often worry about regret but I feel like any time spent doing something isn’t time wasted, you know, even if I don’t keep doing that thing later on. I just worry about running out of time. Or… moreso passion. Drive to do things and dream. Cause I don’t really want to do anything anymore. Not write, nor read, nor draw, nor study, nor work, nor, like, have fun with anyone. I just wanna stop doing things completely. Not like, in a die sense, but in a like “run away and start a new life doing nothing with no one till I start doing things with some people” sense. But idk I’m just afraid.

Feels like lately everything I do in life stems from, like, fear rather than want or love or anything. I study out of a fear of failure rather than a want for success or achievement, or a want to achieve the supposed dreams I have set for myself. I read (when I do) out of my fear of losing my connection with words and storytelling and characters and the joy I derive from it rather than a want to enjoy the act of reading words or the storyline of a book. I pray out of a fear of Hell rather than a love of God or a want to go to Heaven. I talk to my friends out of a fear of drifting away rather than the joy of conversation or laughter (and I feel like I’m getting especially worse and worse at that.)

And I’m just tired of being scared of things. Cause it feels like I’m constantly wasting away. A lot of the things that make me happy and make me me, I guess make me so so scared to the point where I guess I what I want in life is not happiness. When I’m happy I’m just so miserable, because happiness is just so scary. I just want to be content. I want to exist without, like, fear nipping at my heels and without meeting every aspect of my life with this gutting… apathy. And I know I want to do things. I know, distantly, that I vaguely do want to talk and go on walks and read and write and draw and sing and act and.. But what’s it matter? What’s it matter when that want just stems of I guess a sort of desperation to do anything. I want to want more than I actually want.

And as much as I want, I want to stop wanting. Because a large part of everything stems from the fact that I’m greedy, I kind of want too much, more than I can ask for. I want to be myself without living in constant fear of hell. I want to maintain and grow my relationship with God without having to give up parts of myself. I want to stop wanting to be myself as much as I want to stop wanting to be good and religious because no matter what I do and no matter how many people I know and have seen live with both aspects of their being I just can’t… Divorce my perception of either thing from them being anything but the antithesis of the other. Myself is the antithesis of good. Good is the antithesis of happy.

And I’m always going to believe that I’m the one who’s wrong. Because I know happiness is achievable in tandem with this specific view of goodness I’m talking about here. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it, and I’m constantly surrounded by it and I resent so much how afraid it makes me, and I resent more how much I reject it. I’m so angry at myself for not really knowing what’s wrong with me, what’s so different about me that makes me so unable to pick one side or both. What about me is so different that everyone has always just been able to see on me, that they just subconsciously reject it, or I guess me.

I was big on being myself when I was younger. And I hate that I was encouraged to be so, because no one ever wants myself. I became simulataneously obsessed with conforming, in a way. I became obsessed with making myself a palatable idea of someone who is themselves. Someone who isn’t wanted, but isn’t rejected, someone who’s always just teetering on the edge of some invisible line separating whatever, and I pretend that that’s on purpose.

Because I don’t feel okay on either side. With the people who are more like myself I become someone who I don’t want to be, like a skittish animal. I become afraid and judgy and jumpy and I guess I just resent them for being themselves, not out of jealousy because I wanna be myself, but like, out of like an inward shame turned outward against them. It make me itch out of my skin to be surrounded by people who live the same life as me and are loud about it because suddenly it feels like all those little mystery different bits of me that everyone can normally notice spilling out of my pockets or a loose button on my shirt are just smeared all over me in glow in the dark paint.

On the flipside, the people who are more on the “normal” side of things are almost cruel. And it hurts to exist around them because it’s like they can always tell when something’s off about you, and it’s so hard to integrate myself, because my awkwardness is like a neon sign. And it’s worse because I’ve been surrounded by the same people all my life, and they’ve seen me at my worst and my most vulnerable and my most stupid and it’ll be a long long time before I can escape what was of myself, what I made of myself then. And again, they’re so cruel and simultaneously kind and smart and good and just better in a way that feels so unachievable for me.

I’m afraid of disappointment. I’m afraid of being disappointed, but I’m more afraid of my self disappointing the people who I exist for. I’m afraid that the selves I don’t show are just as unimpressive as the selves I pretend I am. I’m afraid they’re all me and they add up to a sum of no one. I’m afraid none of them are me.

My mum always tells me, when we talk about things, that I turn every thing into a bigger deal than it is. “Stop philosophising” is what she always tells me. And I know she’s right about it, but I’m just not sure how to translate anything that goes on in my head any other way and I guess it’s just lonely not to have anyone to talk to. To the point where I’m turning to my freaking comic book Tumblr, of all places.

I worry a lot about who people see me as. I often keep things to myself because I know my ideas are weird, and that I can be incompetent handling them. And not weird unconventional, weird strange. Weird in the sense of why did you get to this conclusion rather than how did you get to this conclusion, if that makes sense. Weird in the what even is the conclusion here. And well, buddy ol’ pal, I haven’t the foggiest.

And I know the way I talk (or I guess write, here) is even stranger. In a way that drives me to overcompensate to the point of being annoying with “sorry I know that doesn’t make sense”s and just constantly apologising for everything I do because I know I’m being judged, or am at least at big risk of it, be that for my grandeur or my ineloquence or incoherency or my over-everythingness or my excessiveness in getting a point across or just general offputtingness, and I never know what to do with that other than bring people’s attention to it and say “I know this is here, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m not oblivious. I’m not annoying. I just don’t know what it is, but it’s there, and I can’t fix it yet.”

I spent a lot of my time when I was younger wondering if I was human. I spend a lot of time now wondering how to be one. I have time. I have time and I know this whole post makes me seem a lot more doomy and gloomy than I am but I’m really lonely, is all.

Imagine being such a shitty person that witnessing the behavior of good person behavior is a huge shock to you

“Wowwww you put your ego aside omg”

Like it’s an alien thing

MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED

There was a kinetic sculpture called “Can’t Help Myself” created by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu in 2016 that was an industrial robot that among other activities both leaked a thick red fluid (life’s blood or lubricant left undecided) and cleaned up after itself. A somehow “alive” device—strangely saddening it was to watch, said museum goers. 

Then there’s “Sandy” a coin operated mechanical metal and…

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This is an alien car

Alien American

I Know You