Identity
“… to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear.”
— Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves
“I was— am— terrified of being owned. By a god or a man or a child or a place. By anyone or anything but myself.”
— Brenna Womer, from “Empire Blue,” Atypical Cells of Undetermined Significance
"What is the self, anyways? Who am I, really, when I am not being constantly drawn into some directionless orchestra of busyness? Or when I am not being constructed/instructed in perfect dyadic tandem by that vast, external capitalistic force that demands me to produce? Although it does feel hyper-personal, my obsession with productivity is somethi
... See more“I was nowhere. It’s the most important place in the world — nowhere. Everyone should spend time there. It’s scary, empty, and cold; it’s sad beyond all bearing; it’s where all human communication is lost, where all your sins, all your shortcomings, all lies and half-truths and double-dealings emerge from the dusk to look you in the eye with neithe
... See more"The longest journey is the journey inward, for he who has chosen his destiny has started upon his quest for the source of his being."
— Dag Hammarskjöld
“Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there and you can see it, you know what it is, it's a wave. And then it crashes on the shore, and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while...The wa
... See more“But I’m endlessly fascinated by how if you just talk to someone long enough, how almost anyone — probably everyone — has something that’s shockingly interesting, it’s just about trying to see if they’ll talk about it or seeing whether or not it’ll come out. I mean, everyone is really fascinating — every person on the earth, probably.”
— Nathan Fiel
... See more“I can be anything I want / Without my legs or my hair / Without my genes or my blood / With no name and no type of story / Where do I live? Tell me, where do I exist?”
— IMMATERIAL, Sophie
“A body is not a prison; it does not close off possibility. It is not a story completed at birth. A body is a prologue, and its story can be written at will.”
— Glitter Up the Dark, Sasha Geffen