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“Can the act of narrative writing alter the writer’s mental alignment and will an honest chronicle and extended effort at seeking answers to a vexatious series of pending personal questions eventually place the author on an even keel? What other motive, good or evil, could possibly cause an essayist to write in such a torrid manner? With each line that I write, I beg to stop. The lines just keep tumbling out. Is there no end to this nightmarish experience of examination and reexamination? Is there no relief in sight to this modest attempt to form my storyline into an intelligible quest? Many days of writing go nowhere; blank pages replicate the blandness of life, whereas other days I sense progress towards an indiscernible and undefinable goal. If I write long enough, what will I finally discover gazing back at me?”

“Each day I attempt to establish a conjugated ring of reasons to rise tomorrow. Each day I seek to engage in some audible act of faith reaffirming a spiritual warrior’s commitment to living. Each day when engaged in investigative writing, I seek to perform some testimonial act that will lead me towards achieving desirable, premeditated change. Each day that I dabble with writing a deliberative memoir requires a scathing examination of how I lived. It also demands scrupulous assessment of how I want to live the remainder of an unspooling life.”

“In the forest canopied with the leafy niche of daily events, a benevolent listener reverberates in the canonical poetry of the ages humming irrepressible visceral contradictions. A squall of tears of bereavement pierces the elegiac sea of a silent night. The red-rimmed eye of sunrise greets us with a torrent of rage spilling over from frontlines of an examined life’s vital quarrels. The flute of life ushers in a welcoming breeze of reassuring resonance.”

“Let the games begin. I shall commence an Olympian contest by attempting to conquer my fiendish ego, slay the warty toad that is destroying a peaceful sanctuary, and endeavor to reach a heightened state of personal awareness. The deepest chamber within commands me to either change or die; I can no longer survive as a loathsome creature that is repugnant to every aspect of humanity and civilization. To do or die, because money does not make a man, no one cares when I die or how much money a person banked. I need to resist the endless commercial propaganda and political doggerel spewed by television and social media sites that encourage stifling conformism in order to advance philistine cultural values. I shall honor this moment of intuitive realization by endeavoring to exterminate the toad that unwittingly governs me before this ghastly beast kills me by spewing its contemptible poison.”

“Our present conscious self and our shadow must learn how to coexist. The first step to attaining personal transcendence commences when the conscious mind and the unconscious mind square off and battle for preeminence. A person who achieves self-realization understands the interworking of both their conscious mind and the unconscious mind and integrates their unique dichotomy into their sense of a self. A person who suffers from a personality disorders or neuroses failed to confront their shadow or unsuccessfully integrated the conflicting motives of the conscious mind and the unconscious mind into a central and fully integrated persona.”

“Failure to act in a crisis is tantamount to accepting a dreadful outcome. I must try to save myself before a rash personal act stubs me out reminiscent of a sucked dry cigarette. I lack a disciplined mind to engage in rigorous study. I am an accidental psychologist, an unreliable philosopher, an unscrupulous self-ethnographer, a crackpot cultural anthropologist, an untrustworthy historian, and a deceitful reporter whom surrounded himself with a facade of untruths, delusions, and illusions. I need to gather personal willpower and attempt my level best to tackle my greatest obstacle – a personal penchant to parley with self-destructive behavior. I seek to penetrate the barriers of constructed falsehoods and reveal the brutal truth of why my soul is so tarnished, engage in many acts of contrition, and atone for a wasteful life. My goal is to construct a living philosophy that will sustain me through all stages of life. I shall use whatever resources are available to me including an intuitive belief in free will to design a self-rescue plan. I must obliterate all vestiges of narcissistic and selfish persona by slaying the ego and dissolving a grotesque sense of self that is preoccupied with the past and fearful of the future.”

“Awareness of our conscious thinking patterns and unconscious behavior predilections enables us to examine the defining question of how we began to take certain values for granted. Once we accept that we are a product of our culture, we can begin the act of deliberately redefining our sense of self. By engaging in an intensive cultural investigation and undertaking a studious period of reflective self-examination, and by exercising disciplined behavior, we can alter our character. Using American society as a looking glass allows me to see how a dominating culture sculpted my self-image. This societal mirror reflects me in a either a positive or a perverted manner. Looking both inward and outward, therefore, is an essential step in seeing oneself clearly. An interior and exterior analysis is the critical initiating act in taking charge of the ultimate configuration of our conscious self.”

“I hold no interest in the tapestry of politics, culture, or religion. I lack the mental aptitude and intellectual capacity to debate nuances of esoteric philosophy and abstract ethical principles. I cannot repose faith in a national ethos that promotes avariciousness, mediocrity, and hedonism. I find no reassurance and emotional wellbeing in adopting religious piety, which requires acceptance and belief of intangible and empirically unprovable concepts and things. It is foolish to squander an earthly life in pursuit of a perfect afterlife, of which there is no evidence. Nor can I endorse suicide because it accomplishes nothing other than terminating a person’s opportunity to meld meaning out of the starkness of existence. I exert no power over external things and gain nothing from resisting fate. I need to accept fate calmly and dispassionately, make productive use of my modest allotment of time, and not waste the spark of existence. I can discover the object of my earnest pursuit only within the flickering self. I am responsible for my actions, which I can examine and control through rigorous exertion of self-discipline.”

“Philosopher Bertrand Russell said, ‘Language sometimes conceals the complexity of a belief.’ Language also sometimes reveals basic truths. Through the time consuming task of writing one word after another and linking language to thought, I shall tell my sordid tale with the goal of plotting an acceptable thematic purposefulness to a life already half-lived. I will attempt to ferret out the hidden self and through an act of will alter my life course. The following chapters relate the culture that birthed me, the family that raised me, the educational system that tested me, the social affairs that shaped me, the friends and lovers that scorned me, the legal profession that rebuked me, and my personal quest to rewrite the construction of a loathsome self-image. How this scaled adventure will end, no one knows, but if any of us knew how our lives would actually unfold, how many of us would say ‘yes’ to all that is. Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ My goal is to employ human free will to attempt to recast my fundamental character and develop the courage and mental equanimity to accept whatever will be – accept a largely deterministic world – while still making the most of my imitable human gifts to imbue this life sojourn with purposeful and evocative experiences of a compassionate and charitable human being.”

“In the late afternoon of their life, a precautious person outgrows the fulsome myths that fueled their impressionable youth. Perceived truths of a fawning youth no longer appear self-evident. A previously established cultural script and its lavish adornments that guided me to the crucial midpoint were no longer relevant. Impetuous acts of spontaneity that demarked my boisterous and animated youth were now irresponsible affections. When I aged and encountered the red claws of a carnivorous existence, I grew weary of the bone meal journey into the unknown. I was suspicious of other people, mistrustful of my personal abilities, and contemptuous of my nascent life plan. New truths must be uncovered. I must fuse an innovative philosophy out of the modest pinpoints of experience garnered in traversing the rocky terrain of living a thespian’s stage-managed existence. Reaching a critical juncture in life, I need to make sense of the past, come to terms with the present, take a cold-eyed assessment of my future prospects, and decide what to do.”

“I commenced writing this scroll in a frenzied attempt to find myself. I wished to ascertain how the concertina wire that cinches the plasma pool of my biological capsule together stitches a person into the vacillating web of eternity. Instead of my wild ravings spooling out answers, the act of writing nonstop in the midst of my darkest hours triggered a torrent of questions to examine. Each adamant question posed led to a baffling string of insistent conundrums. I orchestrated an urgent caucus, and tenaciously conducted a fact-finding mission. I held a self-questioning klatch attempting to pierce a spool of secular inquiries, a series of pious and profane questions that compressed upon my confused mind. The resultant positive displacement and negative displacement of febrile energy generated from this disorientating and mind-numbing process of rigorous self-scrutiny spun me akin to a crazed top. Unsure of my destiny, I lunged into the unknown, diving headfirst into the indecipherable parts of my reeling existence. I asked questions and sought answers, examined a sundry of personal experiences, and listened to my inner vibrations. How does a person square their mystical self to the undulating camber of life? How does anyone face the deflating specter of the impending death of his or her beloved? I seek to develop a desirable quotient of self-confidence and gain the needed degree of brio to tackle life. I wish to learn how to savor every moment, come to terms with impairing personal fears, blighting uncertainty, and caustic self-doubt. I aspire to overcome the disfiguring emotional liabilities harvested during my troubled past, develop healthful new habits, and brace myself against the irreducible fact of human mortality.”

“A person of large dreams does not allow other people’s opinion to damper his or her zestfulness. Overcoming fear of making an irreversible, lifetime mistake is the first step of living an artistic existence.”

“Ancient generations passed down wisdom that all succeeding generations must apply and build upon. We are constantly learning how to interpret the past, not simply ancient history, but also from variegated educational encounters experienced in our own lifetime. We must listen to the voices of our ancestors whom passed along their hopes and dreams. We must also listen to our own youthful voice that optimistically projected the best type of world for us to live in and pass along to future generations of compassionate persons. The collective voices of passionate mavens of nature linked through time created the world that we now enjoy and together they shall alter this world in a profound manner for other people to witness and explore.”

“In the space of solitude, a writer attempts to remember how they became whom they are but nobody’s memory is up to this demanding task. No matter how much a person harrows the fertile lanes of memory, some memories are lost by the passage of time, psychological defense mechanisms screen other memories from detection, the ephemeral character of other memories are invariably to elusive to arrest with reciprocal language.”

“One advantage of being in a long-term relationship with someone whom exhibits a strong personality is that when caught in the conduit of their force field, the resultant propulsion propels us to see both them as well as oneself in clearer light, thereby, opening a person’s eyes for constructive personal change.”

“Personal change requires motivation, a plan, and determination to see a plan through to fruition. Although I elected to change the way that I live, this decision was not easy to implement. We frequently act against our better judgment. We sometimes know the correct thing to do, but still struggle doing so. The Ancient Greeks used the term akrasia to refer to a person knowing what course of action is correct and righteous, but electing do somethings else because of a lack of self-control.”

“The goal of all principled people is to recognize truth. Simple or complex thoughts and feelings standing alone rarely express any universal truths. Thoughts and feelings combine to create profound truths and compose extravagant falsities. Truth making exposes certain falsehoods, and lies shed light upon irrefutable truths. Art reveals the pageantry of nature along with the unmitigated grotesqueness that accompanies an earthly life. The search for truth begins with an intellectual journey into darkness whereas the search for beauty requires an imaginative act trussed with the classical beauty of Apollonian lightness. Aesthetic appreciation represents the perfect reconciliation of the sensual and rational parts of humankind’s animalistic nature. Similar to aesthetic experience – contemplation of beauty without imposition of a worldly agenda – love depends upon human sensory-emotional values, a judgement of values and sentiments.”

“Silent remembering is a form of prayer. No fragrance is more enchanting to re-experience than the aromatic bouquet gleaned from inhaling the cherished memories of our pastimes. We regularly spot elderly citizens sitting alone gently rocking themselves while facing the glowing sun. Although these sun worshipers might appear lonely in their state of serene solitude, they are not alone at all, because they deeply enmesh themselves in recalling the glimmering memories of days gone by. Marcel Proust wrote “In Search of Time Lost,” “As with the future, it is not all at once but grain by grain that one savors the past.” Test tasting the honeycombed memories of their bygone years, a delicate smile play out on their rose thin lips. The mellow tang of sweet tea memories – childhood adventures, coming of age rituals, wedding rites, recreational jaunts, wilderness explorations, viewing and creating art, literature, music, and poetry, sharing in the mystical experiences of life, and time spent with family – is the brew of irresistible intoxicants that we all long to sip as we grow old. The nectar mashed from a collection of choice memories produces a tray of digestible vignettes that each of us lovingly roll our silky tongues over. On the eve of lying down for the last time in the stillness of our cradled deathbeds, we will swaddle ourselves with a blanket of heartfelt love and whisper a crowning chaplet of affection for all of humanity. After all, we been heaven blessed to take with us to our final resting place an endless scroll amassing the kiss soft memories of time yore.”

“We measure time through a mental framework trussed with two major stakes: memory and expectation. Memory is that spottiness that takes place behind the eyes: memory takes place in the cloistered theater that houses diffused still pictures. We file mental pictures that encapsulate our prior life into mental shelves for a wayward librarian to cull through and forward select recollection to the recall center whenever summoned. Expectations arise from thoughtful consideration of our future prospects in life.”

“Our essential humanity is dependent upon humankind’s ability to join the past and the future with the present. Recollections and future projections grant us the ability to cogitate, analyze, and evaluate. Contrasting memories enable us to ascertain what is true and false, and determine what is charming, attractive, stunning, or sublime. Remembrance of the past serves to comfort us, awareness of the future offers us hope, while our dutiful engagement in the present is capable of arresting our complete attention.”

“We came from some place and we are trending in a particular direction. Without memories, we do not know where we come from, and we cannot project our future trajectory. Without a keen awareness of our history, we cannot pose any meaningful hypothesis or engage in any useful speculation regarding the future of humankind. Without knowing where humankind came from and failing to contemplate where humankind is going, we could never touch upon a comprehensive understanding of the mythology and mystery of human nature. Such a spectacle would preclude us from comprehending what it truly means to be human. Melodious memories assist us to feel in our bones what being actually entails in its full aesthetic splendor.”

“Inspirational dreams stimulate us to explore and inquire. Constructive dreams encourage us to solve intractable problems and defeat our competitors. Working on personal or professional problems throughout a dreamy night assists us surmount personal frustrations, overcome cognitive obstructions, and surmount somatic barriers. Sensual dreams endorse pair bonding; promote the principle of natural selection, the desire of the individual to find the best mate and to achieve the optimum genetic mixing. Carnal dreams stimulate the human reflex to reproduce the species; such dreams oftentimes conflict with human values of fidelity and mating for life. Nightmares act as omens, warning us to beware of dangers. Lurid dreams signal us to exercise caution and personal restraint.”

“Irrational fears that haunt our nightmares are indicatory of an unstable mindset. Unsettled thoughts that tug at us during daylight trigger nightmares. The content of nightmares can manifest from physical causes such as sleeping in an uncomfortable or awkward position, suffering from a fever, or psychological causes such as stress or anxiety. Emotional based nightmares that cause us to awaken with feelings of terror or horror can arise from mental complexes that contain the residue from unresolved physiological or psychological issues”

“American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) wrote a collection of essays entitled “The Crack-Up,” which makes the following astute observation: “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideals in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” For instance, he cites the ability to perceive that the situation is hopeless, and still be determined to make it otherwise. Sensitive people who came before me asked the same disconcerting questions that haunt me. Other troubled souls either drank themselves into oblivion or worked themselves to death in search of the elusive answer to this Fitzgeraldian question: Is it a sign of a lucid mind to place two contradictory ideas abreast and accept the merits of both propositions? Alternatively, is the deliberate act of embracing differing ideas with inapposite conclusions the warning sign of a troubled mind’s impending crackup?”

“Language is a tool that allows us to express our thoughts. We use mechanisms of language including oral storytelling and indicative writing to depict a storehouse of evocative images. Language links our mind’s tawny memory and blooming imagination to the world. Storytelling connects each of us to the consciousness of other people who inhabit this planet.”

“Life’s shrouded crossing seems to jump off with a hunger to take a blood-quickening journey, a desire to search for enchantment over the next hillock. We launch our feral voyage with a primitive pulsation to explore unknown lands and a desire to become acquainted with both village people and sophisticated ancient civilizations. Along the way, we will meet friends and foes. In our lightest moments, we will make love to a beautiful mate under a canopy of stars. In the darkest hours, we will fret about how to evade danger and scheme how best to conquer our enemies. The rainbow of experiences that we endure will undoubtedly bemuse, bruise, batter, and occasionally sully us. These hard on the hide shards of experience will also reveal our polychromatous character. By undertaking vivid encounters in the wilderness, with any luck, we will discover a numinous interior world. With immersion into a myriad of life shaping experiences, an undeterred person will stumble onto a path leading to personal illumination. The passage of liberation that a crusader must inevitably endure leads to a shocking psychological transformation, a spiritual overhaul allowing the seeker to finally overcome infantile images and febrile delusions that would otherwise continue to derail their fervent urge to forge an emergent personality, acquire wisdom, and attain bliss.”

“Are happiness and virtue synonymous with living as truthfully and honorably as possible or do these concepts allow for certain mental deceptions? Is a gullible person or a shrewd person more likely to be happy? Is a foolish or wise person more likely to live guiltlessly? What is more essential to living a contented life, accumulation of knowledge or the ability to feel and effusively express compassion for other people? Can we maintain happiness by acting as harsh judges of ourselves while acting as kindhearted judges of other people? Does happiness entail releasing an underground river of long suppressed passion or does it require living an aboveboard life of disciple-like moderation? Should I strive to modulate my desires by laboring diligently to maintain a disciplined mental and spiritual homeostasis? Alternatively, should I take calculated risks and passionately immerse myself in all facets of a tumultuous life?”

“An unbalanced soul seeks equilibrium. I seek a constitutional form to gather my thoughts. I wish to form a flexible personality. I desire to be gentle and fluid of mind. I wish to summon hidden personal powers, but I lack the knowledge and wisdom to do so. I lack a cohesive unifying spirit. I have yet to claim the authenticity of my life. I failed to accept that what anyone else thinks of me would not stave off an inevitable death. I have not claimed a purpose for living. I have not found a basic truth that I can live and die supporting. I failed to exert the resolute will to become who I aspire to be. I rejected abstract concepts and failed to endorse the systematic reasoning of philosophical studies. I indulged in the type of obsessive excessive self-analysis, which leads to the brink of personal destruction through self-objectification and artificial triumphs. Echoing the words of Romanian philosopher and writer E.M. Cioran (1911-1995), ‘I’ve invented nothing; I’ve simply been the secretary of my sensations.”

“We each pine to express our uniqueness. Is it absurd to take ourselves seriously, and resolutely search out a means to discover and express the story that plaits a modicum of coherent reality out of our existence? Is it ridiculous to garner joy from walking in the woods, spending dashes of time intermingling with family and friends, and by working unerringly at our jobs? Is it right to take solace in minor moments of wonder woven together similar to strands of wool in a familiar sweater? Can I wring joy from the snug encounters of daily living by participating in an interlinked web of community of life? Can I foster goodwill by saturating my heart in time-tested faith?”

“Who we are is an ongoing process of forging a personalized self-concept. Our childhood upbringing and our personal history as an adult formulates our identity. Identity spawns from the dewdrop of our crystalized experiences. Identify is partially formed by the places that claim us including places we resided and places we traveled. Identity is often closely associated with a person’s nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, occupation, age, and their abilities and special disabilities.”

“Every person gauges his or her own personality. Self-evaluation includes reviewing a person’s conception of a self from a wide variety of viewpoints including if said person is an insider or an outsider, religious or nonreligious, partisan or nonpartisan, and vegetarian or meat eater. Self-assessment of who we are usually takes into consideration many principles including when compared to other persons, what specific personality factors a person exhibits. Combinations of personality factors establish every person’s recognizable temperament, which assist people achieve a recognizable personality and a sense of self-identity.”

“Self-questioning and self-identification go hand in hand. It is surprising how little life changes. Most of the days that we spend working, playing, praying, loving, and eating are predictably uneventful. They produce no dramatic events, do not engender acts of high resolve, do not require examination of our morals, or necessitate the questioning of our ethical guideposts. We do not test ourselves daily. In fact, we spend most of our daylight hours attempting to avoid highflying situations that we cannot control. Fear of encountering ugly little surprises hinders a careful person from undertaking an adventure that entails the potentiality of surviving a crisis that will prompt them to grow and in doing so act to define the evolution of the self. Actions, not our words, reveal personal character.”