Aditya Chauhan

“Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face--there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes.

Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself.

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“The phenomenon of the "creative ilness", described in detail by Henri Ellenberger, in his massive study of the history of the unconsious, is alive and well in our own culture. Ellenberger described its characteristic elements:

A creative illness succeeds a period of intense preoccupation with an idea and search for a certain truth. It is a polymorphous condition that can take the shape of depression, neurosis, psychomatic ailments, or even psychosis. Whatever the symptoms, they are felt as painful, if not agonizing by the subject, with alternating periods of allevation and worsening. Throughout the illness the subject never loses the thread of his dominating preoccupation. It is often compatible with normal, professional activity and family life. But even if he keeps to his social activities, he is almost entirely absorbed with himself. He suffers from feelings of utter isolation, even when he has a mentor who guides him through the ordeal (like the shaman apprentice with his master). The termination is often rapid and marked by a phase of exhilaration. The subject emerges from his ordeal with a permanent transformation in his personality and the conviction that he has discovered a great truth or a new spiritual world.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“Still immersed in his dream, he drank down the tepid tea. It tasted bitter. Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“i have a daughter who reminds me too much of what i used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. and that terrifies me to the point where i can barely function.”
― Kurt Cobain, Journals