Do you know, I couldn’t live a month in this house? This atmosphere would stifle me. ibid. Astroff
You drink and you gamble. Please stop. ibid. Sonia to Astroff
I am dying of this tedium. What shall I do? ibid. Helena to Sonia
We are confronted by the degradation of our country brought on by the fierce struggle for existence of the human race. It is a consequence of the ignorance and unconsciousness of starving, sick humanity that to save its children instinctively snatches at everything that can warm it and still its hunger. ibid. Astroff to Helena
What can we do? We must live our lives. Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old: and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. ibid. Sonia
It’s just a year since father died last May 5th, on your name-day, Irina. It was very cold then, and snowing. I thought I would never survive it, and you were in the dead faint. Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters, 1901, Olga
In 25 years’ time we shall all be dead. ibid. Soleni
Our present existence, with which we are so satisfied, will in time appear strange, inconvenient, stupid, unclean, perhaps even sinful. ibid. Vershinin
In two or three hundred years’ time life on this Earth will be unimaginably beautiful and wonderful. ibid.
Suppose we could live life over again, knowing what we are doing … ibid.
It’s a cursed, unbearable life. ibid. Masha
Let’s all get drunk and make life purple for once. ibid.
How strangely life changes, and how it deceives! ibid. Andrey
Civilians in general are so often course, impolite, uneducated. ibid. Masha
It seems to me that everything on Earth must change. ibid. Vershinin
Either you must show why you live, or everything is trivial. ibid. Masha
My wife has poisoned herself again. ibid. Vershinin
They think I’m a doctor and can cure everything, and I know absolutely nothing. ibid. Chebutikin
Perhaps I don’t exist at all, and only imagine that I walk, and eat and sleep. ibid.
My God, I thought, what these girls will go through if they live long. ibid. father’s monologue
What life will be like then ... ibid.
I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored … ibid. Masha
I can’t work, I shan’t work. ibid. Irina
My brain has dried up, and I’ve grown thinner, plainer, older, and there’s is no relief … I can’t understand how it is that I am alive, that I haven’t killed myself. ibid.
They only eat, drink, sleep, and then they die. ibid. Andrey
The present is beastly, but when I think of the future, how good it is! ibid.
Life is heavy. To many of us it seems dull and hopeless. ibid. Vershinin
There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. ibid. Irina
In a little while we shall know why we are living, why we are suffering. If we could only know, if we could only know … ibid.
Have you ever looked around at the limitless majesty of creation and wondered? Wondered what all these forests, valleys, mountains and puddles are actually for? Wondered how many buildings were knocked down to make way for them? And who granted the planning permission? Cunk on Life, BBC 2024
Can I call you Brian, or do you prefer Cox? ibid.
This is the good Old Testament, the first entry in the Christian cinematic universe. Jesus isn’t in this one. It’s mainly about his bad-tempered dad. A man so mysterious we still only know him by his stage name, God. ibid.
God had hidded the secret of known inside a delicious-looking fruit. ibid.
It’s hard to believe we all mutated from monkey meat. ibid.
The Ikea instruction manual for life. DNA. ibid.
Did you know only 50% of people have skeletons? ibid.
With God dead and existential despair all the rage, it seemed humankind was all alone in the universe. ibid.
You notice things others don’t. You question what others blindly accept. And slowly, people begin to drift away. Psyphos podcast: Schopenhauer: Smart = Alone: Why Society Rejects the Trully Intelligent, Youtube 2025
Deep down you feel a stranger among your own kind. ibid.
What if society just is not built for people like you? ibid.
The more deeply you think, you more alienated you become. ibid.
Your loneliness might be the highest proof of your mind. ibid.
It’s social exile. Because when you can see through the game, you stop playing it. ibid.
Schopenhauer: He believed that life at core was suffering, and that the more conscious you are, the more you feel it. ibid.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone. ibid.
You see the world for what it is: A dance of illusions powered by unconscious craving. ibid.
You are not broken. You are just awake. ibid.
Because their minds crave depth, muance, ideas, not gossip, repetition or emotional noise. ibid.
This sensitivity is not a super-power, it is a burden. ibid.
Solitude is not just an escape, it’s a reclamation of your mind, of your time, of your energy. ibid.
[Michel de Montaigne]: ‘The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to yourself.’ Psyphoria podcasts: The Art of Not Caring: When You Embrace Uncertainty, Life Becomes Easier, Youtube 2025
Have you ever stopped to think about how much of your anguish comes from your obsession with control? … Internal control: the suffocating need for certainties, to know what will happen tomorrow. ibid.
No more certainties, but a new relationship with what cannot be controlled. ibid.
Montaigne was not an ordinary philosopher … He wrote from within his own skin. ibid.
Montaigne embraced the opposite: he did not know. ibid.
In a time when everyone shouts, he whispers. ibid.
Anxiety is the fear of the unpredictable. ibid.
It’s the desire for life to be different from what it is. ibid.
[Carl Jung]: ‘Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.’ Psyphoria podcasts: You Must Let Go: Who to Let Go From Someone Who Hurts You
You say that you want to forget, to move on. But tell me, why do you still think about that person every day? ibid.
You miss what you projected on to them: the illusion of love. ibid.
Often what we call love is just our shadow clinging to someone. ibid.
As long as you continue to seek outside what is missing inside, you will be enternally imprisoned by the gaze of the other. ibid.
The unconscious search for validation and the price paid for betraying oneself. ibid.
If deep down you feel like you are living a lie, you will continue to feel empty. ibid.
The role of the shadow in repeating toxic patterns. ibid.
Carl Jung defined the shadow as ‘everything you do not want to be, but are’. ibid.
Burying is not eliminating. ibid.
You will have to face everything you have avoided. ibid.
[Schopenhauer]: ‘A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.’ Psyphoria podcasts: Pretend to be Dumb: You Will Never Want to be Smart Again: Schopenhauer
There is a price to intelligence … On the contrary, they suffer more. ibid.
The truth is not something people want to hear … because the truth is unsettling. ibid.
A brilliant mind is a curse because it destroys illusions. ibid.
Intelligence brings with it an increase in sensitivity. ibid.
[Dostoyevsky]: ‘The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God.’ Psyphoria podcasts: Stop Trying: The More You Try to be Happy, The More You’ll Suffer
You are tired, aren’t you? Tired of chasing a happiness that never arrives. You wake up and feel an emptiness. You go to sleep and it’s still there. ibid.
He [Dostoyevsky] knew that this modern obssession with being happy is a disease disguised as a solution. ibid.
‘Suffering is the only source of consciousness.’ ibid. Dostoyevsky
Being happy has become an obligation. ibid.
The false promise of positive thinking. ibid.
Dostoyevsky saw suffering as a path to true freedom. ibid.
What if you stopped trying to be happy? ibid.
[Carl Jung]: ‘I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.’ Psyphoria podcasts: Stop Giving a Fuck: Nothing & Nobody Will Ever Hurt You Again: Carl Jung
Have you ever wished to be someone who is unshakable? Someone who doesn’t care about rejection, loss or betrayal?
The biggest lie that you’ve been told is that you are in control of your life. Wake up because you’re not. ibid.
But control is an illusion. ibid.
What you need is not more control but more awareness. ibid.
You have already gone through the fire. You have faced your monsters. ibid.
Nothing will shield you from external suffering. ibid.
[Carl Jung]: ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’ Psyphoria podcasts: Carl Jung: It’s Time To Say No More: You Have No Idea the Self-Love That Awakens Ater Saying No More
There comes a moment in every person’s life when without warning something inside breaks. It’s not sadness. It’s not anger. It’s something deeper. It feels as if the soul itself grows tired of carrying the weight of other people’s expectations, of holding on to relationships that only drain.
The beginning of a true process of individuation. ibid.
A silent scream that has been waiting years to be heard. ibid.
When you say no more, you are facing your shadow head-on. ibid.
You begin to reclaim your energy. ibid.
You can never go back to being the person you were before you woke up. ibid.