champorado

As an autistic I have always felt a deep attachment towards characters who wear armour or masks. Shows, movies, books, fanfics that feature this character being loved despite not being fully seen. And then, once the character learns to love and trust those around them, they finally feel safe enough to take the mask or the armour off. And the tenderness that ensues this act of pure trust. There’s something deep inside me that loves and clutches tightly to this trope, because to me there’s nothing more beautiful and more goddamn relatable than the idea of finally feeling safe enough to take off the mask around those whom you love.

— ghost-with-teeth

And sometimes I willfully aggravate the nausea, like someone who induces vomiting to be relieved of the urge to vomit.

— Fernando Pessoa

When an archer is shooting for fun
He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets –
He is out of his mind.

His skill has not changed,
But the prize divides him.
He cares
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting –
And the need to win
Drains him of power.

— Zhuang Zhou (369 BC - 286 BC)

the lesson of the moth by archy

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then to cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is to come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue with him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy

— Don Marquis

I have seen your grave,
From the patterns in the pine
To the silken lining which will engulf your body,
I have seen.

The stone used to mark your final resting place,
The moisture of the ground in which you remain,
I have felt.

The stench you will leave within,
The stages of your undevelopment,
I have known.

I have seen your cells break apart and decay.
I have known the brittleness of your fragile bones.
And I have seen you forgotten,
Buried beneath millions of years of life
Continuing without you.

And in looking in your face,
I have seen my own.

— Jeremy Christner, Kosmology: Luciferian Philosophy

What is frequently appreciated in many so-called symbols is exactly their vagueness, their openness, their fruitful ineffectiveness to express a “final” meaning, so that with symbols and by symbols one indicates what is always beyond one’s reach.

— Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language