Michael Szymczyk > Quotes

“The rats at the door had gone away. I drank another bottle of wine. To think I was once rich. I once had money. I had everything but something.

I used to think that all people desire to be cared for; some are so used to it that they take it for granted, others, who never feel it, desire it so much that they constantly
need it. So much in fact, that when they don’t receive it they have outbursts, and in the end they wind up pushing away those people who in the end would have cared for them
as their heart desired within its innermost depths. So they are always alone, always on the edge of society, within it, but at the same time, apart from it. They are like spectators
watching with envy the dance of mankind, wishing for that one feeling that only another’s love can bring. A whisper
that speaks to one and only one and says:

“You truly are worth something.”

They never know that feeling that shines on some.

So they cease to expect and begin looking elsewhere for that…wonderful whisper of…

War.

Love almost seems like war.

The ancient Greeks used to say, ‘Love as if you will one day hate.’

I used to think that meant something very
pessimistic, that love was not real.

But really, man is just an animal anyway.

It’s not just about that though, the Greeks meant more. It’s like, ‘Live as if you will one day die.’ Do not take
for granted life, and for the Greeks, do not take for granted your love. After all, it really is something special. Even if it doesn’t last, it’s the moment that matters. How cliché, but
the problem with most men is that they learn words, rather than the concepts that the words signify. And life, death, love, are these not the most important things, those which
a man should learn before all else. And the moment…what of this, even in misery it still matters. But all we learn are words and a way to be.

God I love wine.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“In the silence, in the darkness of solitude, our
thoughts become the monsters that torment us like little children in the night.

I cannot tell myself this is a nightmare. O heaven high above me, how I wish…wish I were crazy, safe in some asylum, in a straightjacket…how I wish this were all made
up like a terrible dream…all to be awoken from with the swallowing of a little red and green pill.

But it is happening and no matter how hard I scratch and bite my flesh I will not wake up.

Silence.

Wer ist das? (The sound of breath, it takes me a minute to realize that it is mine own). Strange, but even then I do not know who that is.”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel

“You look at everything wrong, and so long as you do so, this life will forever remain a tragedy to you, and the best things that lie in front of you will be forgotten for something that matters but little, simply because that matters little which one cannot have, and what is the point in wanting that which we cannot have if it takes away from the things in which we can have.

“And what can we have?” I asked.

Life, and the greatness that comes from living it. You are unique toilet, it is possible that in all of history, and all of the future there will never be one such as yourself. You are an individual, and being an individual you are as a star that shines but once, so shine brightly.”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel

“I thought of the opera ‘Madama Butterfly’ that I had just been listening to and saw myself as that sailor in that opera who was born into beauty but left it to chase his
American dream. I had forgotten my heart, and the home in which it beat, and now as I held a life, tightly in my arms, in my eyes, that had wounded itself and was now about to
die.

Neglect. The burning furnace.

I realized that I was never to see her, Life, again and that throughout the years when she had been there

I hath forsaken thee

lost in money, in opinion

in short, an exchange

in which we trade the means for the end (happiness),
but never realize until the end how much we have truly lost
and I.

I was at the end of my road, or at least this road.

Regret. But now was not the time.

She was still here; breathing with the wind, beating against my face that licked with the cool, cool presence.

There was still what was, what is, and for but a short time what was still to be.

I had but a few moments to make up for an entire life that I had lost.”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel

“Just because we do not expect anything from other people [3.6 Regarding ones dealings with other people: Expect nothing, receive everything.], does not mean that we cannot still give. What we have in excess we should give out like an overflowing river. We should be like Raskolnikov giving his twenty-five roubles to the widow.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“What is becomes what was. It is this fact that, given enough time, makes man insignificant. [1.6 Death makes everything insignificant.]”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Hypocrisy is the rule in this world rather than the exception. If a person desires to be free of hypocrisy, they should imagine that everything they do is always being watched and judged by others or in more superb cases, by the person they would like to become.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“The only fact that man consists in is that he or she is. It is this fact that gives a person significance.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“I view a piece ‘The Sick Child’ by Edward Munch. At the moment I view it I perceive the intended effect, a certain situation and the emotion it contains. The viewer’s reaction to this will depend on his or her own subjective experiences, that is, if he or she can relate, create a relation between what was (or is) and what is expressed. If he cannot he will walk away to the next painting with a strictly intellectual enjoyment of Munch’s work. If he can (and does) create a relation then the effect becomes affectual. The viewer’s memory activates, he sees the painting, he sees himself, and out of that comes the relation. He remembers what it (the situation, resemblance to situation) felt like and in that relation feels a bond with the painting, a connection. Art is relieving because it makes us feel that we have not been alone in what we have felt.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Our relationships with other people lose significance in time. With each goodbye we expect less and less from each hello. This does not mean, of course, that we should stop from saying hello.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“The value of philosophy is not so much that different than the value we have for music. The value of philosophy lies in the aesthetic effect it can have on the life of man. It makes life beautiful despite its insignificance.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“In this Idea we find the expression of human interest (of wanting things to be the way one wishes them to be), rather than any clear exegesis into the ideal nature of the Idea. Things may very well be different. What one may signify may not be the same as another signifies (Saussure). We may hope that what we translate is the same idea, the same signification as the author intended, but we have no way of knowing to be sure, we are beyond that moment of signification and now in a moment of decision. There is no guarantee that what we choose is what the author intended (Derrida). We exist potentially only within a world of resemblances and relations; in actuality the originals lose themselves in the act. In this respect Post-Modernism is valid.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“All those times back in my life when I had thought myself unhappy…how foolish I had been. Any man who experiences the worst looks back on all that was as better.
So it was with me.

“Call only that man happy who is dead.” The ancient Greeks once said that…but oh ye ones lost in the river of time…if only you knew, if only you knew.

Man, no matter what his situation, can be happy, if only he realizes that his situation could be worse.

But for me, there was no worse situation; I was like Croesus attached to the pyre, only there was no King to release me from being consumed by the flames.

But here, right now, as I write this, I am happy, because I am at war. War is the refuge for those who have nothing better to do.

The voice of my conscience, like an ancient Emathion head, was lost in the lust, devoured within the burning fire of my heart.

I poured some Beefaronis over my foot. The dim light of the flashlight shone upon it. Then I waited. One came, quickly, running across the room. It leaped at my foot but my hand grabbed it before its teeth could clench
down on my foot. The razorblade in my other hand came down hard upon its flesh. As I concentrated on murdering this poor rodent, I did not see the other rat scurrying across
the room.

The pain was deep. It did not just indulge in
Beefaronis, but its teeth dug deeper. I screamed.

I let the other rat go, throwing it across the room.
I did not know if it was dead or not, but I did not care. I tried grabbing the other rat, but it had dug itself in. I kept screaming. I felt as if a pitchfork was repeatedly struck through my body while I hung chained to a wall.

In a way, it almost felt good, because it was different from the deadening dullness that was normal.”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel

“If one experiences unrequited love, it helps to read Lucretius.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Happiness consists in a being harmonious with itself. In a subject’s relation to itself that is affirmative, and not without clandestine operations and routines (i.e., the neurotic mind that affirms an image not its own to avoid confrontation). Despair, consists in a Kierkegaardian sickness, a self which does not want to be itself, that is, it consists in a subject’s relation to itself which is negative, which does not affirm that which it is. The problem of happiness is a very simple one: one must simply change ones attitudes towards oneself, one must simply affirm who one is.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“The greatest failure in philosophy has been the failure to realize that despite whatever we may accomplish in this life, given enough time, everything becomes insignificant.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Regarding our dealings with other people: Expect nothing, receive everything.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Imagine: the mind exists isolated in a chaotic wasteland; four white walls, an even whiter ceiling and a floor that has no color surround it. It is this limitation that protects it from the harsh weather of insignificance that lies outside. Over time these walls slowly close in towards the center and when they meet they vanish along with everything else.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“I spent most the day sleeping…or night…I
feel a little better. I know that there should be no more walks outside. But really…

I destroyed the tomb of shit. I dug the rat out and held its putrid body close to mine, and I cried, and as I cried I held tighter and tighter till the rat and me were one.
And as I cried I whispered, ‘Don’t leave me Mommy! Don’t leave! Hold me please!’ And I almost thought I could hear her whispering back, from somewhere deep within my head.
And as we held each other I forgot about all this crap I was buried in…I too was like this rat, we were both dead only I still awaited to be rescued from my grave of shit. But in this
moment I was rescued by some long lost memory…

A child’s joys. A child’s fears.

Do we ever grow out of them?”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel

“It is the mark of a common mind to think that everything is for him significant. In a respect he is right, in that moment everything (in terms of the intentionality of his or her consciousness) is significant. The mark of this type of man is that he never looks beyond the moment. If he did he would drown in the sea of insignificance, in the realization that what is, becomes was, and what was no longer has any significance (except for in relation), and what is, given enough time, becomes what was, that is, no more (hence the relation loses significance). If he could realize death he would realize [1.6. Death makes everything insignificant]. He would realize that he is no different than the countless number of people that have come and gone before him, who found their significance, much as he did, in bodily and social pleasures. He would realize this moment which has been given had for him its significance not in its primacy (in the moment itself) but rather in its secondary qualities, that is, the relations to those social and bodily pleasures which he has strived for, he would realize that the moment, which is most significant because it is primary (all else is secondary from it) had been forgotten, and that the life he had been living he had not been living at all. He would realize that what he had hitherto found significant was, given enough time, truly insignificant, and what had always seemed insignificant, the moment itself, was the most significant, simply because without it, there would be nothing. A man’s significance lies in truly living in his moment.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Suffering makes valid the act of significance in the moment, in the moment we suffer, suffering has total significance. We feel in the act of suffering as if our suffering will never end, as if we had spent an entire life suffering, but all this gives way to a moment in which we do not suffer. Given enough time our suffering becomes insignificant. A person would do well to keep this in mind. They would do even better to take measures to reduce the factors that cause suffering in their lives.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Freundshaft, or Friendship has a valuable character only if one can be a friend oneself to others without seeking any friendship in return. On the other hand, one should be mindful, and not value and be distracted by those who suffer dishonorable habits and whose style of life we should not seek after.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“The determination of what is significant is difficult. It is not a matter of pure subjectivity, nor is it one science can deal with adequately, its investigations lie in the relation between the two. The ego of Fichte is not applicable here, if it were a matter of pure subjectivity it would be a matter entirely defined by the individual's tastes and preferences, (and there is nothing said here against the individual creating for himself-apart-from-others his own values of what is significant) there would be no method to determine which tastes are good, and which bad. If it were a matter of pure objectivity there would not be taken into account the ground from which that objectivity derived, it would annul itself. (i.e., the failure of various political and organizational ideologies is perhaps due to the fact that they place an Idea before that of the individual who gives that Idea reality). It is thus in the relation, in both tastes and preferences, along with a scientific method that philosophy sets out to study what is significant. However, whatever is given significance is significant only in the moment it is signified in relation to the limited that at that moment is (the objective and subjective variables that create that specific moment in consciousness). Philosophy is thus always busy at its task.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Knowledge that was, and now is, exists only as a resemblance to something that was, not as a reality of something that is. What was signified may not be the same as what is now signified. There are those that assert knowledge has a strictly independent existence. They are wrong. They confuse what is with what is known. What is, that is, the world (noumena) in all probability does exist apart from the limiting (consciousness), but that world would be as blind to itself as Schopenhauer’s will. Knowledge is always knowledge of something, it presupposes a knower, a limiting, without that limiting knowledge has no existence, hence no significance.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“To say that one should do nothing because in the end everything is insignificant is honest, but puerile. A man is what he does. A man at the end makes himself a fact, therein lies his significance to himself in the blind eyes of a potential eternity. A man, who does nothing, is nothing (to himself). He does not realize the significance of being as it is; he sees only what is, as what was.³ He takes being but makes nothing out of it. On the other hand, a man who does something is something (to himself). If the Greeks were to be told in their time that despite all their accomplishments, all would, given enough time, become insignificant, they would laugh and continue sailing on the high seas of life. So too should you.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Concerning the validity of knowledge, we may have to resort to a pragmatic conception in order to retain some sort of significance, in the short span of our lives, of truth or at least invent or refine linguistic expressions. A thing is called true if it works in explaining what is at hand, a given thing’s truthfulness consists in its efficacy at explaining, that is, that is most true which works best at explaining the situation at hand. Let us not forget: [1.2] if we look at things long enough, everything becomes insignificant. This is what our “truth” teaches us, and it is not without value.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“It was the first time I realized that I was going to die. I was drowning in the realization that this life was not going to last, that life was one day going to end, and as I began to suffocate in the fear of my own mortality, something happened, the days began to pass. I slowly began to forget in the constant flight of life the one thing that could set me free.

My mind turned then to the first time I was in love.

But was I really in love?

For five whole years I had forgotten myself, my existence in the embrace of another. Love, the river Styx, and a toll we pay so we don’t wander wretchedly this earth in a lonely eternity, watching with remorse the fleeting happiness of others in union.

Love, Narcissus, a stream where we fall in love not with another, but in the fact that
the other loves us. Perhaps. Love, Fleeting fulfillment of which at the end lies Ceres, heads of a dog that will devour
us and leave us stranded in the abyss with a thirst never quenched, but our throats always crying out, dry, for more and more and more. Ich liede Durst. So said Siddhartha.
Immer. Toujours. Always

And forever, ad infinitum.

O Life thou pluckest me out.

I guess it doesn’t matter though because, perhaps, that’s just life, and what is true is that for one eternal moment I was in joy…I was the blinking eye

wide open which ever widened for more.”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel

“We do not need to look beyond this life to judge the significance of most human relationships.”
― Michael Szymczyk

“Some of the greatest tastes in life are acquired (i.e., the taste for classical music, learning, exercise, solitude). A man should set himself out to acquire good taste. Above all, he should first set out to determine just what good taste is. What in the limited time of this limitation in its totality, that I call life, what will be most beneficent to me as Dasein?”
― Michael Szymczyk

“If one cannot love that, then what can one love?

Life? But life is just as ugly as we are.”
― Michael Szymczyk, Toilet: The Novel