Travis Wade

“Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.”
― Albert Camus, L'Étranger

“It was difficult to say which were the more dismal, these deserted streets that wandered away to right and left, or the great main thoroughfare with its narcotic and shadowy life. For the latter appeared vast, interminable, grey, and those who travelled by it were scarcely real, the bodies of the living, but rather the uncertain and misty shapes that come sand go across the desert in an Eastern tale, when men look up from the sand and see a caravan pass them, all in silence, without a cry or a greeting. So they passed and repassed each other on those pavements, appearing and vanishing, each intent on his own secret, and wrapped in obscurity.”
― Arthur Machen, The Hill of Dreams

“All any alienated man can hope for is to find a livelihood that fits his expanding sense of self. Blessed is he who accepts without complaint the toil that is suited for the riot of his soul. Blessed is he who discovers a calling that he willingly devotes his entire heart and soul to accomplishing. Blessed is he who exhausts himself performing whatever his inner nature demands. Blessed is he who dares to seek, search, discover, and to create what he cannot suppress. Blessed is he who gives air to what he cannot strangle within and still live a full life any more than one can choose to stop breathing and maintain a heartbeat. Blessed is he who raises himself to a higher pitch and institutes harmony within himself. Blessed is he who loves his family, cares for his people, and radiates a vast love for the hills, rivers, creeks, mountains, tress, sky, and all the birds, plants, grasses, marshes, and the multitudes of creatures that call nature’s wonderland their paradise.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls