Proteus

Amateur pixel, sketch, and digital artist, animator, and poet, extraordinaire. Carrd: https://proteus-inanitas.carrd.co/

[proteusinanitas]

Untitled 7 (realist)

love

hate

strike it rich

leave

its all the same

toss out the past

never make the future

forget to present the present

don the mask

take the class

yearn beyond your means

adjust the straps

fake your last

learn before you do

[proteusinanitas]

Untitled 6 (Sire)

Slash the feeling Cut the sheaf Heed the reading Leave the wheat

Pump the blood Cross the mud Use the scud Cleave the flood

Make the teaching Take the leaching Slake the feeling Wake the nearing

[proteusinanitas]

Under the cursed light of the sun, dooming us to eat, fail, and be eaten, we have heard the music. We have created the song. We whirl and dance and find our way home, only to find that home was never the place we thought it was. It was only the place we came from, nothing more.

But still we tilled it, shaping it in our own image, to our own designs, for our own uses. Until it was unrecognizable. It was placated, absorbed, and calcified into philosophy, dogma, practice. Nothing more than reassurance.

But then we became frightened of the heights we built to. We looked down and saw how far we came. And some of us jumped, and fell to the start. But the people still building started to look down, but not at their hubris. Down at the people, down on their fellow man. And it became nothing more than division.

But still we built, built deeper and higher at once, until we could not see each other, until the gap was too big to jump. Until we saw no others but our own. And we continued on our paths, this time without fear, without challenge. Until it became nothing more than isolation.

But there were some, still willing to build the middle, to bridge the gap. And they toiled to the utmost for both their sakes. For the time when we all would agree on something. Until it was just...

Nothing more than Ascension

[proteusinanitas]

Rise

Until the lambs are lions

Until the flesh is flayed thin

Until hearts are hard stone

Until the work is done

From flowers to flowing wine

From broken to breakers of chain

From fishers to fishers of men

From miracle to mundane

your status does not make your stature

but your stature determines your mind

your mind begets your willingness

but opportunity only comes with time

[proteusinanitas]

Untitled 5 (Journey)

I am but beyond a goal

You are but betwixt the two

We all strive to be, but never can see

The journey we all looked for

[proteusinanitas]

Rancor

Hatred outlives the hateful

Kindness outshines the kind

Apathy precedes the apathetic

The mind creates the mind

Hate the hateful

Love the loving

Care for those who care

Thank the thankful

Fight the fighting

But know who owes you time

[proteusinanitas]

Same Shell

The shell holds the good in and the bad out.

That's what it's meant to do.

And it does.

The meat holds the mind in and the experience out.

That's what it's told to do.

And it has.

The soul holds the you in and the other out.

That's what it does.

Maybe that's what it was meant to.

But the shell isn't the meat.

The shell is by definition hollow.

By nature, a container, not an entity of its own.

But it does what it does.

And I don't think you can fault it for that.

[proteusinanitas]

An Omen of an Heir

Because you are one, you are great. Greatness is found within. Oneness is found without.

Because you crave, you devour. Cravings are normal by the hour. Voracity is found crazed by the moment.

Because you are lustful, you are desired. Lust is only satiated in moments. Desire is fulfilled by the days.

Because you steal, you are stolen from. Usurpers will steal to be sustained. The hollow will survive on their charity.

Because you are silent, you scream. Silence is a precious element. Screams are a shunned alloy.

Because you destroy, you create. Destruction is a precursor to something. Creation is a precursor to nothing.

Because you sleep, you despair. Sleep will be peaceful through storms. Despair is the storm of the peaceless.

Because you spare, you annihilate. There is no killing in sparing. But too much in the annihilation of thought.

Because you trample, you are rivaled. Disdain tramples on fools. But only fools seek ardor in tramplers.

Because you seek truth, you find lies. Truth is a world of shadows. But lies are the verse beyond.

[proteusinanitas]

No True Genius

There are no geniuses

They've all been victimized by circumstance

There are no wonders

They've all been eroded by mundanity

There are no new thoughts

They've all been worn out by antiquity

There are no geniuses

But who's to say I'm right?

I'm not a genius

It's been whispered I'm gifted by God

I'm not a devout

It's been withered by typhoon and drought

I'm not an orphan

Its been years since I've felt like I'm not

I'm not a genius

Yet who's to say I am not?

[proteusinanitas]

Laplace's Demons

it is what it is it couldn't have gone any other way there's nothing you could have done yet what is there left to say?

it twists and it turns it transforms and it morphs it hisses and it burns yet who is their lord?

my fingers say its rigid my mind says they're soft I intend to not be shifted like they want to, oft

oh, muse of many colors oh, muse of molten tar oh, muse with many followers? oh. you weren't a muse at all

[proteusinanitas]

Poem of the Forsaken Land

The wind has lost its cheer

The sky has given up its tears

Even still the valleys can rear

Even still there are people to hear

As the sun yet creeps up that blasted sky

Its sins still stain those nights

As the dead pile up and begin to dry

And their souls leap up to fight

Their gods fall deaf and turn to psi

Their land yet continues its flight

[proteusinanitas]

The First and the Last Ephyll

One day, The Creator decided to make a new creature.

He took the fur of a monkey, the fringes of a fern, the horn of a unicorn, and the form of an otter.

He called it an Ephyll.

The creator asked the Ephyll if it liked its body.

The Ephyll said, "I wouldn't have it any other way!"

One day, the Narwhal and the Ephyll met.

The Narwhal was having a toothache, and asked the Ephyll if they wanted to trade horns for a day.

The Ephyll agreed.

Later, the Ephyll met the Grizzly.

The Grizzly didn't like the color of its fur, and asked the Ephyll if they wanted to trade fur for a day.

The Ephyll agreed.

Next, the Ephyll saw the majestic branches of the Fir.

The Fir was shedding its sharp needles, much like the Ephyll shed its soft fringes.

The Ephyll switched for a day.

Nearing evening, the Ephyll sought out the Beaver.

The Beaver was toiling around and so the Ephyll asked on a whim if the Beaver wanted to trade shadows.

The Beaver agreed.

In the darkness of the forest, the Jackalope passed by the Ephyll, remarking how beautiful they had become.

The Ephyll agreed.

When it came into the moonlight, the Ephyll realized its horn was no more, given back to the Narwhal.

In the twilight, a clock chimed twelve times.

The Ephyll was no more.

[proteusinanitas]

On Paradise

We can't handle paradise.

We can handle glimpses of it if we're careful, but true paradise would consume us.

We find ourselves in places that we call paradise, but aren't actually.

Good food, nice people, fun things, all would be present in paradise, but they are not paradise.

Paradise isn't heaven, nor is it enlightenment, nor any other place or state of mind.

Paradise is an ideal.

And ideals subsume us.

Why do we think we could handle the real deal when our best guesses all universally destroy us?

Drugs catch dregs of paradise, but never fully catch it, nor take us close for long.

Yet still they come with health issues, addiction, and consciousness changes.

Drugs show us that paradise is gravitational, it warps us, pulls us in, and stretches us into unrecognizability.

Hedonism is the simplest form of paradise, but it introduces a poison in the well. It makes us lose connection to worth.

Unchecked pleasure erodes our network to process it. Slowly you get more and more extreme, until nothing matters.

Possibly the most inaccurate, yet paradoxically best for us mirror of paradise is fulfillment.

Fully satisfying our needs but not much more gives us space to believe and think about ourselves, and become all we want.

Paradise cannot be fulfillment because it is not universal. Not all people must be fulfilled to have their wants met, but paradise is a universal concept.

Paradise is a lie, and I'm not the one telling truth.

[proteusinanitas]

Is // Not

Is there a form, or is it formless

Is there a poem, or is there nothing

Is there life, or is there unlife

Is there a space, or is it filled

Is there a reason, or no reason at all

Is there reason, or no reason to be found

Is there any reasonable, or none to find reasonable

Is there a reason, or not

[proteusinanitas]

Hex the Rich, Hack the Poor

Money is the bane of the poor, the key to the chains

Money is the birth of the rich, the lock to shut others out

Money is the sin of humanity, that which shore us from the garden of paradise

Money is the savior of humankind, that which brought us from the depths of barbarism

Magic is the privilege of the people, the voice of the many who cry to solve their own problems

Magic is the primitive spirit, the idea that you can hope your problems away

Magic is the individual, the need to do everything yourself

Magic is the community, the drive to live in harmony with the world around you

Technology is the curse of the rich, the gag of the few

Technology is the class, the knowledge, the hubris to understand

Technology is the society, the power that grows from many hands and many cooks

Technology is the secular, the rejection of everything but the law and the mind

[proteusinanitas]

In This Day and Age

Sharpen your knife

Sharpen your tongue

Sharpen your life

Sharpen your young

Dull your senses

Dull your mind

Dull your defenses

Don't you mind?

Aren't you happy?

Aren't you mad?

Aren't you crappy?

Aren't you sad?

Why so insightful?

Why so bad?

Why so insightful?

Aren't you glad?

Don't you get it?

Aren't you sane?

Dull your blade and you won't remain.

[proteusinanitas]

Water is the bread of life

Its kind of hard to think of another word so steeped in history, that has sustained so much of history

Water is the blood of life

Maybe a more apt, literal term, but in a different connotation, more visceral

Water is the oil of life

Not really a literal interpretation, more symbolic, maybe more political

Water is the water of life

A little goofy, yet it feels like it has more depth than that, something about meta-cognition

Water is of life

Possibly too simple, but it can add an element of philosophy about the nature of life

Water is of death

An inversion, illuminating by way of negation

Water is the food of life