Everything about my mind and body seems to feel the weight of the past. I am just as I am.

"If you are lucky, and you take the right drug, you will know what it is to be enlightened (or to be close enough to persuade you that enlightenment is possible). If you are unlucky, you will know what it is to be clinically insane. While I do not recommend the latter experience, it does increase one’s respect for the tenuous condition of sanity, as well as one’s compassion for people who suffer from mental illness."

"Authors who attempt to build a bridge between science and spirituality tend to make one of two mistakes: Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind - parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty of the night sky. In this vein, one finds Einstein's amazement at the intelligibility of Nature's laws described as though it were a kind of mystical insight.

New Age thinkers usually enter the ditch on the other side of the road: They idealize altered states of consciousness and draw specious connections between subjective experience and the spookier theories at the frontiers of physics. Here we are told that the Buddha and other contemplatives anticipated modern cosmology or quantum mechanics and that by transcending the sense of self, a person can realize his identity with the One Mind that gave birth to the cosmos.

In the end, we are left to choose between pseudo-spirituality and pseudo-science.

Few scientists and philosophers have developed strong skills of introspection - in fact, most doubt that such abilities even exist. Conversely, many of the greatest contemplatives know nothing about science. But there is a connection between scientific fact and spiritual wisdom, and it is more direct than most people suppose. Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well established truths about the human mind: Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world."

"How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Especially awe-inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and change brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate - your brain- that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself."

V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

The Way You Used To Do

Jump like an arsonist to a perfect match

Burned alive

The Hearth and the Salamander

...

'What?' asked Montag of that other self, the subconscious idiot that ran babbling at times, quite independent of will, habit, and conscience.

He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know that refracted your own light to you? People were more often - he searched for a simile, found one in his work - torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?

What incredible power of identification the girl had; she was like the eager watcher of a marionette show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture fo his hand, each flick of a finger, the moment before it began. How long had they walked together? Three minutes? Five? Yet how large that time seemed now. How immense a figure she was on the stage before him; what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender body! He felt that if his eye itched, she might blink. And if the muscles of his jaws stretched imperceptibly, she would yawn long before he would.

Why, he thought, now that I think of it, she almost seemed to be waiting for me there, in the street, so damned late at night...

...

"Sorria"

YOB - In Our Blood

All my life
Stared into flames
Of the gods
Of our gods
Burning
In this dreaming unease
In my eyes
Colors wane in the halls
Hallowed halls
Send my roots
Into unknown fields

Frantic minds
Bastard tongues
Spirit disease

Sent by the lost
Blinding the vision
Within
Stealing the light
For itself

Deep inside
The dark clamored
In us
Ever near
Revealed
And seen without fear
Shed the skin
Expose the heart
In twilight
Azure grace
Return this
Shadow's embrace

Transmute mind
Atomic shift
Quantum incision
Spirit vision

Sent by the one
Unified wisdom
Shining
Clearing the path
To ascend
The blood speaks to
Quicken
Eternal rivers within

From womb to the womb
Rain falls to the sea
From the leap to the ground
Falls the reed into sound
From birth unto the tomb
Love breathes to release
These shackles of mind
This empty ruler
These clouds on the screen
From the state in between
Where in our blood
We always know

"What is reality? Obviously, no one can say, because it is a word. It isn't material, that's just an idea. It isn't spiritual, that's also an idea. Time to wake up."

In our blood
We always know

Such rare things survive across time, across distance. A full breath of fresh air.

A stark obsession no one else would know

"A rose is a rose - except here."

Methadone
Adrenaline

There's no two Alice. They're all different features from the same. That's why you always get hypnotized by Alice - whoever you are at any given moment, there's Alice. Her eyes always looking at you the way you fear and love the most. Her voice always the voice you need. Her distance so close, her breath on your ear, her wish so warm, her want so cold.

Whoever you're looking for, she's Alice.

"There's only Alice."

"Hello, old friend."

I heard a joke once

The way he looks at things now, it's like he doesn't remember what they are. It's like this world, this real world, to him, it's like walking through mist, and people are just shadows. Shadows in the fog.

A throne made of broken words

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah


Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah


You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did—well, really—what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah


I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Sleep

The low frequency vibrating doom, the sludge of demons, that all-filling stench of pleasure. The sweet sound of sour-sweated strings swatted against the sinister body. High minds, low notes. Drive fast, play slow. And follow the smoke towards the riff-filled land.

I’ve been pretending my whole life. Pretending I don’t mind, pretending I belong. My life’s built on it. And it’s a good life. It’s a life I’ve always wanted. But then I came here and I get a glimpse for a second of a life in which I don’t have to pretend. A life in which I can be truly alive. How can I go back to pretending when I know what this feels like?

- I... I can make that feeling go away, if you like.

- Why would I want that? The pain... Their loss... It's all I have left of them. You think the grief will make you smaller inside, like your heart will colapse in on itself, but it doesn't. I feel spaces opening up inside of me, like a building with rooms I've never explored.

(...)

- Is there something wrong with these thoughts I'm having?

And yet, one does manage to lose all of them.

Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?

The reptile pushes itself out into space
Leaving behind the human race

Reality seems to be slipping

Soma

‘Look,’ he commanded.

‘But it’s horrible,’ said Lenina shrinking back from the window. She was appalled by the rushing emptiness of the night, by the black foam-flecked water heaving beneath them, by the pale face of the moon, so haggard and distracted among the hastening clouds. ‘Let’s turn on the radio. Quick!’ She reached for the dialling knob on the dashboard and turned it at random.

‘… skies are blue inside of you,’ sang sixteen tremoloing falsettos, ‘the weather’s always …’

Then a hiccough and silence. Bernard had switched off the current.

‘I want to look at the sea in peace,’ he said. ‘One can’t even look with that beastly noise going on.’

‘But it’s lovely. And I don’t want to look.’

‘But I do,’ he insisted. ‘It makes me feel as though …’ he hesitated, searching for words with which to express himself, ‘as though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. Doesn’t it make you feel like that, Lenina?’

But Lenina was crying. ‘It’s horrible, it’s horrible,’ she kept repeating.

I wish I learnt from pain.

This is rather tiring

"Once again, Hel is reaching deep inside of her, stormy seas and lost souls. She’s dreamt of this before.

They say dreams are visions of our memories, hopes, and fears as seen by our inner eye.

And what if each one of us is always dreaming even when awake? And we only see what our inner eye wants for us?

Is this what Hel is? A world shaped by Senua’s nightmares?

Maybe.

That’s why people fear seeing the wolf in her eyes. Because if you believe that Senua’s reality is twisted, you must accept that yours might be too."

Senua's Sacrifice

In this waking nightmare where all dreams come true, you searched for control. A way to pull through. When you were in love you left him in tears. To smother your furies and banish your fears.

But in darkness they came, through stormy black seas they raided these shores.

Do you still hear his screams? And now that you're home he's so far away. They've taken his soul.

To these gods you cannot pray.

They can break you, but not your promise. Even death won't keep you apart. Through his darkness you will find him. In your sword still beats a heart. You fought for love unspoiled. By your darkness within. You fought for your dreams, now there is no way to win.

In the head of his corpse lies the seat of his soul. So you must carry his vessel and bring him back home.

Something lurks about. Like a shadow, it is something I can see, but I can't grasp. It isn't really there, you see? You can't grab a shadow. You can't grab an idea.

Maybe it's general absence following my steps.

The absense of identity, inspiration, pride - the awful aftertaste of some fantastic drug. The long withdrawal and the sense of losing oneself in the process.

Maybe it's the madness, peering at me from far away.

These dreams, of confusion, and death, and sorrow, an unescapable mess of threats and fear and tears and innocence.

"The hardest battles are fought in the mind."

“I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, “Why?”
Why did I cause so much pain?
Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?
Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love?
I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
And God says, “No, that’s not right.”
Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.”

And you hold dear the whisper, as peacefuly as it can be.

Put your mind at peace, put your heart at peace, they are - and always were - your own.

"Experience yourself."

I'll try and keep my fear away.

Such a story couldn't have a single narrator.

It had to have two.

And though I dare not open the fragile book, I dream of the sound of its pages turning.

When I least expect, the book whispers.

Many pages had been filled with bitterness, many more with sadness, but all pages smell of you. A story doesn't get bad for showing a range of emotions, feelings, tastes and smells. It only gets more complete. Bittersweet.

Of Alice

His eyes are tired, ready to rest, though his heart and mind were ever restless. For they all knew of a life and love story that was born too soon, and is now an old man's inner rambling about what could have been.

A book someone thought it'd turn to dust the moment he'd open it to read the words, see the pictures, watch the story unfold.

The narrator holds the story close to his heart, and so he wants, and so he cares, and is afraid, and yearns, the words, about the words, of the words, for the words.

And he forms a smile. A story no one will ever be able to take from him.

"I... A universe of atoms, an atom in the universe."

"Yeah, about the test. The test will measure whether you're an informed, engaged, and productive citizen or the world. And it will take place in schools, and bars, and hospitals, and dorm rooms, and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, and job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you'll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric, and whether you'll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that when taken together will make your life yours. And everything, everything will be on it.

I know, right? So, pay attention."

My soul has flown away, replaced by cringy emptiness, and I didn't even notice it until it was too late.

"It's called a changeover."