Ryan Gelpke > Quotes

“The sun's descent marks not just the end of another day, but a symbolic passage—a reminder that life, like the sun, moves in cycles, each ending giving birth to a new beginning.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Days

“there is very likely no inherent meaning behind our existence. Never was and never will be. But we can't let that get to us because nihilism is dangerous and ‘the dangerous dragon that we should all avoid’. That being said, it is absolutely vital that we create our own meaning in this so absolutely weird and absurd universe that doesn't give a rat’s ass about you or me. As much as I would love to believe that there is a justification for all the horror and suffering that we live through I don't see a universal meaning to life. Except one of course, living life. Create your own meaning, make the best out if it and enjoy the good times, not too much though, and stay steady in the bad times. Make your life’s meaning something that is worth living and you’ll be fairly happy”
― Ryan Gelpke

“Here, in the vast expanse of nothingness, one confronts the depths of their own existence, unburdened by the trappings of modern life.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Days

“But what do I do? I end up torturing myself with all this overthinking. I am trapping my consciousness in both the future and the past alike instead of relishing the present. No wonder the desert cries at night, in light of such thoughts.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Days

“The sad truth is that we have to persist in this doomed world that we have created.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“What are we looking for again?”
To which I reply: “I don’t really know... the human essence?”
“And what is that exactly?”
“I don’t know either. But we know when we find it. Trust me!”
“And where do we find it?”
“I don’t know either my dear Bernard. That’s why we are looking everywhere. But till then... let’s have a jolly good time and get even more drunk! Life is too short to get lost in our overthinking.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“Long ago I thought I knew myself, now my knowledge about myself is nothing but a empty shell…”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“But we are always running out of time. There is never enough time. That is the sad predicament of life: To never have enough time. To start dying the second you are born…”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“The night sky, a cosmic abyss, holds the promise of mystery and adventure, beckoning wanderers like me to explore its depths.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Days

“Can I propose a toast to the fragility of life and the weight of mortality?”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“The sun sets and it is another reminder of the sheer fragility of time, a reminder that death and decay are always closer than we think”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“But as long as we all practice kindness wherever we go and don’t stop to wonder at this a so marvellous and stunning world our very existence won’t have been wasted. Not in the slightest! So let’s have a lovely drink, hug each other and cry at the sight of the beautiful sunset that we are about to witness! And then go home, get some sleep and do it all over again!”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“And so, we continue living, going insane, trying to experience whatever ecstasy one can before finally biting the dust.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“We are insane prophets in an ever changing world, a world that cries out in pain yet still carries on with an incredible will to survive through its own pain. Soon, however it might all come crashing down one way or another.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“All lonely, beautifully silent and so very enchanting the city seems at night when every tourist, hotelier and tour guide have gone to bed, almost like a ghost town if it weren’t for the one or other lit window and a few lonely insomniac people walking the alleys here and there.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Nietzsche’s Birthday Party: A Short Story Collection

“I am scared of snapping. That something, some random day, it will simply make ‘click’ in my mind and all of the sudden I will absolutely lose my mind. In other words having gazed into the abyss for too long. Go completely and totally insane! How does one decent into madness? What makes one click so all of the sudden life is upside down and people don’t know themselves anymore?”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“Aren't you tired of this loneliness, though?" Benjamin inquired, his voice tinged with a hint of concern.
"But deep down, aren't we all lonely? Remember, we enter this world alone and depart from it in solitary fashion. In the end, it's always yourself, and only yourself, against the world! And you always lose. No matter what! That's the sad truth," Invokera mused, her words carrying a touch of melancholy.”
― Ryan Gelpke, We Tragic Few

“Death is what gives our lives urgency, an awareness that time isn't infinite.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“We all have to die one day, we might as well die with some obscure meaning attached to it.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“I realised how terrible it must be to be at home everywhere for it means to be at home nowhere!”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“Amidst this paradoxical existence emerges a dichotomy – a world dying outside, while we, ensnared in our paradisiacal illusion, merely survive without truly living.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Path to Choquequirao: A Short Story Collection

“Fate is usually not kind to most of us here on this little planet.” Says Alan to me.
“Indeed… but remember suffering is a prerequisite of living life. Whether you are miserable about the fact that you suffer is your own choice.”
“It’s an easy way out isn’t it? Being miserable about your own suffering.”
“It’s also ignorant about the fact that everyone suffers too. We all pay a price for our consciousness.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“After all we all are prisoners. Of our memories, our desires, our limitations, our disappointments… in the end we are terribly tragic creatures.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“Aren’t you tried of this loneliness?”
“But deep down aren’t we all lonely? Remember, we come alone into this world and die all alone. In the end it is yourself, and yourself only, against the world! And you always lose. No matter what! That is the sad truth…”
― Ryan Gelpke, We Tragic Few

“Have you figured it out yet?”
“What?” I say.
“What it means to be alive?”
“Nah mate…”
“I guess the secret lies in being alive, eh?”
“What about insanity?”
“Isn’t insanity the same as being alive? I mean after all... can’t be insane without being alive and can’t be truly alive without being at least a little bit insane.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“You know we are doomed anyway, right?
Beg your pardon?
No matter what we do, what we archive, what status we have, how much material wealth we acquire, we all die. Some of us in terrible pain whilst we do so… Life is inherently cruel, there is no other way of putting it.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“We watch on as a young woman passes us by, her eyes glued to the screen of her phone. She almost walks into a cyclist, looks up for a split-second and then eyes back onto the screen and walks on, unbothered, like nothing has happened. It is clear to us, the world’s center of attention had shifted in the last few years, its center was now in our hands, its currency was measured in likes and shares. Information these days swirls in an endless, never-ending tornado of tweets, news feeds and viral sensations, each single word, no every single letter actually, fighting for our attention, fighting for a moment in the spotlight before fading into the depths of digital oblivion, to be forgotten forever.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“Some cities are pretty at night, others only during the day but a handful truly great places can be both pretty at nighttime and at daytime. Venice is one of them.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Nietzsche’s Birthday Party: A Short Story Collection

“Sometimes we humans are like brainless chickens, we run around aimlessly and to no avail, we seem to be looking for something that we don't even know what it is, some sort of missing piece, which isn't even there. Why don't most of us realise that life isn't about looking for the missing piece, but actually to learn live with the fact that one might never find it and still have a happy and fulfilled life nonetheless?”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“Let’s savour the downfall of paradise shall we? Nothing better than see paradise collapse and finally give way to the ugly mess that is this truly tragic world of ours! Cast our illusions away and look the devil straight into the eye, congratulating him on the work he created on planet earth!”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering