All I’m saying is that that feeling you get when you understand something is also something that is not a stability. Because we can never understand anything fully, our understanding and theories are also not something to hold onto.

You cannot only be an observer. You must live in it

Experience life. Must that have a purpose or reason?

And in that moment it felt like I had some fundamental insight, but the next moment already felt like it was nothing

Every moment a different me, a different Dasein because Dasein is a being-in-the-world and the world is different every moment

To what extent is philosophy something personal? To what extent should philosophy take into account human emotions?

You can hardly break society while being deeply rooted in it. It is perhaps necessary to not-be in society to clearly think. And also to clear your mind of societal eyes.

Our ‘philosopher-philosophy’ is of course efficient but with it we also often miss what it is really about. Why does it matter who posed an idea?

I must observe, analyse, explain the human story, while simultaneously living in it. And also this analysis is part of the human story itself, how paradoxical that might seem

Once you realize it’s a story, there seems no way back into ignorance

Why would we do that if it is nonsense? [But] what are the criteria for nonsense?

I’m going to miss this time in my life, I realize I’m in the good old times right now

Where does our desire to understand come from?

It is so hard, when the story you want doesn’t exist in this theatre. When the path that fits you isn’t one that has already been pre-chewed. Because of that, you truly have to find your own way.

What is worth talking about?

The unreachableness of everything (of all truth)

The human story is not necessarily bad, I just don’t believe it is the best story we could make. So I don’t want to participate in it, that would be putting on a mask

Are there only homes in the human theatre? Does a home not exist outside of it?

What is a human life if it is not in relation to another?

I encountered this scary thing called emptiness and made it my friend. Turns out, it wasn’t so scary after all

Social interaction coaxes us into the story we made. Not necessarily bad, just an observation

Prayer has something beautiful if it is not forced, if it is genuine

We are programmed to live life without asking too many questions, even though it makes no sense

And I told them: ‘I’m done. I’m going next week’

Through the arguing and tears I had found peace in departure

By trying to get away from something, we can’t get away from it.

By wanting to become independent, we become dependent on becoming independent

Do I still want to have a thought that is well-known?

How do we talk with the unknown?

The unknown of a teenager is what makes them intangible, scary.

If you lip-sync an insult, is it still an insult?

What kind of life are you living if you are ghosting people?

[I mean, seriously, has no one ever taught you how to communicate?]

Looking for a balance or a middle always implies a duality: a balance between good and evil. etc. But what do we do when suddenly a third option comes into play? Or when we realize that the world is not dualistic at all?

Definitions are too rigid for life, we will not capture the truth with western theoretics. But the far side of the eastern tradition captures nothing, it is too loose, it says nothing real. So somewhere in between those is perhaps our best bet to approach truth.

What significance does this photo have? What does it say about me? What does it say about you? Does the sight of me in the eyes of others mean anything? Do my words? Why would I be talking to you if you have never listened before? What life do I have if I live only in the eyes of others? If I live only in this photo? What is this photo? Is there any part of me there? Is there anything there at all? What do I show of myself? What do I let you see? Surely, not all of me. So not really me at all. So in this photo you see nothing of me or the world in which I am, alongside you. Do not attach meaning to photos. If you want meaning, look at the world. And it will look back at you with her blank face. And you will see your life in the reflection of her eyes. And you will cry at your reflection; cry and break. Break down to the ground. And slowly build up again. And then… You look into the eyes of the world and you do not cry. You look at her with a blank face. She does not shake you. Because she has broken you before and now you are a part of her, truly a part. Truly alive and not merely someone waiting to be broken.

Why truth?

Sometimes life feels old fashioned

[Don’t you ever see the future around you and then laugh at how antiquated we are?]

The idea of sex is better than sex

Nothing is ever what you imagine it to be. Not sex, not a relationship

To feel sadness because you know your grief will pass. You don’t want to stop grieving them

My lovers killer does not deserve to die

Within our limitations, we are limitless. Like the finite infinity between 0 and 1

A desire can always have its origin in an escape from life

[‘I am scared to be alone, so I desire company to escape from this,’ instead of ‘I know and accept that I am fundamentally alone, but I desire company because I enjoy it.’]

A comment on the back of a philosophy book: ‘sets the bar high.’ What?? Sets the bar high for what? Why does philosophy have anything to do with ‘setting the bar high’?

How do you live:

Everything is allowed until you find a reason something is not allowed or
nothing is allowed until you find a reason something is allowed?

[Philosophy students] read texts of philosophers and are stimulated not to write like them. Is [the study philosophy] a place of second-hand philosophy? Real philosophers are discoverers, but we are trained to be interpreters

I care not much about some of these holidays but I must pretend to somewhat care because the people I care about seem to care about these holidays

Colourlessness in the men’s section

It is fun to have to search

Saying that something is indescribable, is a form of describing

No reflection or brainstorming for new ideas when socially active

[Being socially active takes up space that you need when thinking deeply; therefore these two should and can not mix]

Life is duality

[Or rather: humanity perceives life as duality]

The fundament of truth collapses

Are we doomed to be childish? Are we limited in our being-a-child, in our growth?

[We will not reach complete maturity]

The near death experience of mental brokenness

It’s harder to change the system than it is to live in it

I like to think I can think outside the box but probably not because the box is ruthless. Actually it’s indifferent but it’s hard for humans to escape it and that’s why we experience it as ruthless

Why do we want to be remembered?

In daily functioning we automatically reduce each other

Introversion and depression; [are we] genetically doomed to be like that?

By absurd I mean we experience something now that we will never experience again

When I was a kid
I thought adults ruled the world
Now I see
Humans don’t rule it

You look at this and see nothing while there is infinite imagination within it

Deviating from the ‘normal’, prescripted way of deviating

[There is an expected way of being different, but to defy all expectations we must be different in a different way]

We start from our human systems and definitions and go from there but we never think back to how those systems and definitions came to be