i guess “virginia is for lonely people” doesn’t have the same sort of ring to it

Read some old books. Sometimes an author will mention that most of the people you see walking around are simply clones of one another, that they have no truly unique personalities or traits, and that most of them are stupid or intellectually / spiritually unconscious. It was true then and it is true now. And what is more is that to be the antithesis of this sort of person affords you nothing except poverty, disdain, and alienation. Yeah.

Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary.

(moby-dick)

. . . in the depth of my heart there I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, but yet I did suffer, and in the real, orthodox way; I was jealous, beside myself . . . and it was all from ennui, gentlemen, all from ennui; inertia overcame me. You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referred to this already. I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all ‘direct’ persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited.

(notes from underground)

I know the ‘There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life. . . .’ passage by heart, and often I say it to myself. For God’s sake, it brings me comfort, and lord knows you’ve got to have a bit of that to get on.

i know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, i’ll go to it laughing

here is a Brand New Fact about me:

after i get out of a movie i basically run through the crowd to get to the parking lot so i don’t have to hear anyone else’s opinion on the movie we just watched.

I tend to like novels about embittered loners who walk around at night and see people laughing and having fun while thinking “Look at all these damn fools!!!”

(‘Moby-Dick,’ ‘Nausea,’ ‘The Stranger,’ ‘Notes From Underground,’ ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’. . . .)

when i am not alone, which isn’t very often, i am surrounded by people who are not asking any questions

If, after death, another planet or dimension or realm or mode of existence awaits me, I hope it’s a hell of a lot better than this place, where the good things disappear far too quickly and everything and everyone eventually lets you down.

The only gain of civilization for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations— and absolutely nothing more.

(notes from underground)