Jonestowne

“Among psychiatric researchers, having a job is considered one of the major characteristics of being a high-functioning person. ... Most critically, a capitalist society values productivity in its citizens above all else, and those with severe mental illness are much less likely to be productive in ways considered valuable: by adding to the cycle of production and profit.”
― Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

“When a certain kind of psychic detachment occurs, I retrieve my ribbon; I tie it around my ankle. I tell myself that should delusion come to call, or hallucinations crowd my senses again, I might be able to wrangle some sense out of the senseless. I tell myself that if I must live with a slippery mind, I want to know how to tether it too.”
― Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

“If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too”
― George Gurdjieff

“I was, allegedly, free of him, and I was safe, but I'd lost faith in that delusion a long time ago.”
― Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays