Afracious

“Here is the confession
once made by a patient to Brierre de Boismont, which perfectly
describes the condition: 'I am employed in a business house. I perform
my regular duties satisfactorily but like an automaton, and when
spoken to, the words sound to me as though echoing in a void. My
greatest torment is the thought of suicide, from which I am never free.
I have been the victim of this impulse for a year; at first it was insignificant; then for about the last two months it has pursued me everywhere,
yet I have no reason to kill myself. . . . My health is good; no one in my family
has been similarly afflicted; I have had no financial losses, my income is
adequate and permits me the pleasures of people of my age.”
― Durkheim Emile, Suicide: A Study in Sociology

“In an essay on the subject some years ago, Paul Goodman wrote: “The question is not whether pornography, but the quality of the pornography.” That’s exactly right. One could extend the thought a good deal further. The question is not whether consciousness or whether knowledge, but the quality of the consciousness and of the knowledge. And that invites consideration of the quality or fineness of the human subject—the most problematic standard of all. It doesn’t seem inaccurate to say most people in this society who aren’t actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics. But is anyone supposed to act on this knowledge, even genuinely live with it? If so many are teetering on the verge of murder, dehumanization, sexual deformity and despair, and we were to act on that thought, then censorship much more radical than the indignant foes of pornography ever envisage seems in order. For if that’s the case, not only pornography but all forms of serious art and knowledge—in other words, all forms of truth—are suspect and dangerous.”
― Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays

“No veils, no aliases. No duty, no blame. These green woods are without thought, nameless are its denizens. They lead into a waking dream. A dream with nothing to dream. Nothing to conjure nor relate. No effort to pursue nor resist. To sleep among root and rock… Why harbour identity where there is none? What good governs here where you are nothing? Your recitals without audience, your words without paper. The clanless hermit conceives of his own visage twisted in the shady stream. He carves not hideous figures and faces from the kindling but burns it. He dances not with a head of sprig to impress the elves. A sage must emulate nature from which morality is neutered. Ethics are chaste fodder for undying pyres. That ongoing tumult beyond the forest’s edge shall be yours to lick up and knock over again and again if you so choose… Mankind invents and implies. The crowd accepts or denies. People are always begging pity or scorn from your kind.”
― Jacob H. Kyle, The Tedium Lies

“The mere thought of having to enter into contact with someone else makes me nervous. A simple invitation to have dinner with a friend produces an anguish in me that’s hard to define. The idea of any social obligation whatsoever – attending a funeral, dealing with someone about an office matter, going to the station to wait for someone I know or don’t know – the very idea disturbs my thoughts for an entire day, and sometimes I even start worrying the night before, so that I sleep badly. When it takes place, the dreaded encounter is utterly insignificant, justifying none of my anxiety, but the next time is no different: I never learn to learn.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet