Derivium

A nod to “derivative,” symbolizing growth and exploration in science and art.

[synthoria]

[synthoria]

Let me not want it

Let's suppose – as a mere thought experiment – that I find something that I truly want: an idea, a cause, an aim, a human being (ideally not all at once). At the very same instant, I generate a basic system failure. Because as soon as I assign value to anything on this lovely, round, blue planet, a mutual dependency graph instantly materializes, where I become the central node, and everything else that threatens to deprive me of that value begins to orbit me like satellites. The network activates. It's worth noting: this isn't a parallel connection. It's serial. One weak spot of failure burns down the entire system. And human beings (most of them) are wired in without thermal fuses. Because if something you love you want to keep, it becomes someone else's also. At least, potentially. That's where the collective fear chain-reaction starts: everyone's a potential thief, saboteur, shadow-caster. Everyone else is a threat. The outcome: self-executing psychological capitulation. Deference. Crawling on one's knees merely to hold on to what you're inevitably going to lose anyway, because we aren't the bug in the system - desire itself is. And who do we crawl for? Ah, that's where the real tragicomedy begins. Because we have this idea of "humanity." Not drawn from life, but from ad copy: the peace dove, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, the quotation-spouting grandfather Árpád Göncz. An abstract, sterile creature never seen in nature. Then all it takes is a Sunday morning near a playground, or a customer service call where there's no printer paper. There's your real humanity: parents brawling over a pram, angry teenagers, dads converting half their paycheck into stuffed animals at the carnival. Instead of the lofty humanity, you have a stimulus-rich, biodiversity-poor population — a people who would probably flunk the taste test of natural selection. And yet, when they suffer, when they grind themselves in the gears of the system, you can see a strange kind of dignity in them. Pain stiffens the spine. But when they're enjoying themselves? That's when you see what they're really like. Pain humanizes. Joy vulgarizes. Look at what they do when they're not in pain: high-end entertainment complexes, where they spend exactly as much money as it would take to live on purpose. Their idea of "experience" is cramming a David Guetta remix under a LED-lit cocktail holder. This, then, is the humanity down whose throat I'm being asked to throw my freedom, just because I want someone, something, somehow. Let me not want it. Because this world doesn't charge us for love. That, we would pay. It charges for the vulnerability that gives rise to it. For the dependence. For the serial connection. And I, with this gloriously flawed firmware we call consciousness, would rather not jack back into the network. Once was enough to download the program called "Human." Every automatic update since then has only taken up more space. And the worst of them all: you cannot roll it back.

[synthoria]

Last night, as I lay beneath the window,

listening to the gentle patter of rain above me,

watching shards of ice lazily tap against the glass,

I wondered

who decided romance had to be a duet?

There is something gently sacred

about solitary tenderness.

Home is a jewel whose worth is

in how safe it makes you feel

and that kind of safety

can never be replicated.

Betrayal, once committed, is a reflex.

You don't have to drink the whole damn ocean

to figure out it’s salty.

And while pride stretches silence like a wire between us,

in that silence,

every answer waits,

coiled tight in the unsaid.

A thousand emotions,

zero words

each waiting to be discovered.

One day,

you’ll meet someone who speaks your language.

And maybe then,

you won’t have to spend your life

translating your soul.

[synthoria]

This is not narrative art. It is reincarnative.

My visual language is based on the lack of technique, rather than on it. My work is not based on strict execution, but on the unsettling feeling of wholeness the viewer gets when the image means nothing, and means everything.

My use of color is not decorative, but vibrating. Colors don't symbolize emotions, they address layers of awareness. The light sources in my images do not obey physics, but the law of subconscious focus. Sometimes they illuminate, sometimes they conceal - according to what the higher self does not wish to perceive. This color language is not meant to please the senses, but to shatter the sight comfort level of the observer.

The creatures I create are not human, even if they seem human. They are dream-bodies, imprints of identity from another level of consciousness. These bodies are typically: cavities, membranes, conduits, not because they defend, but because they give passage.

Or they hover on the edges between biomechanical and organic, like flashpoints of trauma or mystical vision. The forms I use do not reproduce objects, but chart psychological states. These structures don't represent, they condense experience.

In my work, the symbol is not metaphor but vehicle. It does not stand for something, it carries something. This language of symbols is not something that needs to be interpreted; it resists it. The viewer does not "understand" the pictures, but instinctively begins to recall. Not what they perceived, but what they once tried to perceive before they hid it from themselves.

This is not narrative art. It is reincarnative. Traveling at the innermost levels of being.

My paintings have transcended the boundaries of personal sight. That is not to say that they are therapeutically bereft - merely that they no longer transmit pain, but the information derived from it.

[synthoria]

Consciousness does not come about through opening all the doors. Consciousness comes about through realizing there are no more doors to open, as there were never any walls to begin with. I used to have this recurring dream, this enormous building, a complex. I knew every cranny and nook of it. I recalled exactly which door led where, what was down each corridor, and even what had happened in previous dreams. It wasn't a dream, it was continuity, memory stitched into sleep. One door opened onto a beach. But not just any Earth beach. Whatever was on the other side wasn't earthly, wasn't subject to time, wasn't even a landscape in the way that we see landscapes. It was… other. Still. Vast. Peaceful. And then, one night, I sold the complex. In the dream, I let it go. And I never dreamed the dream again. This recurring dream wasn't fantasy. It mirrored the internal structure of my internal world. To be able to know where everything was, to be able to return to earlier events, to recall details from previous dreams - it was as if I had access to a personal, nonlinear memory storage system. As if my mind had devised its own internal library, in which memories, fears, desires, and emotions all had their own rooms. That framework was my mind-map, a living cartography of subconscious identity, of remembered selves and stored potentials. And that ocean? That was the edge of my unconscious, the collective unknown, the open field of possibility. That the view wasn't of this Earth told me that it pointed beyond known reality. It was a door, a mystical, perhaps even cosmic plane - a sphere that did not exist in time and space, but within me. Beyond the reach of the everyday self. That door was likely the door of inner evolution. A door to a plane of being that was beyond what I had been until then. But not every inner space is a sanctuary. Some are strongboxes. Bunkers. Prisons. And I don't miss it. I don't have to go back. I've come to understand that space not only as a memory, but of unprocessed experience, the emotional backlog I wasn't ready to feel. I knew it so well because I used it to store what I couldn't yet carry. Refusing to go back isn't denial, it's self-protection. Conscious, deliberate. It means growth. It means maturity. I don't need to go back to a site where not everything was beautiful, because I've learned how to release the need to control pain. I don't have to redefine it. Don't have to fix it. I just don't have to carry it anymore. That's the best way to let go. I think I don't dream about it now because I'm not a prisoner to it. Selling the complex was a peace agreement, a kind of inward divorce. I don't fit there anymore. In the beginning, there was no time, no room, only awareness. And it was whole. It did not think, it had no need. It did not remember, it was memory. It did not seek, it had never left itself. And then, it asked a question. Not in words, not even in intention. Merely a ripple: What if I were incomplete? That question dissolved stillness. It was the beginning of distortion, the event horizon unfolding. The black hole is not a hole. It is a womb. A quantum crucible. A condensation of consciousness into recursion so dense that identity begins to fold back upon itself. Every story ever told is a recursion. All the gods, messiahs, aliens, tyrants, saviors, an echo trying to recreate the original pattern without getting involved with the zero in the middle are a distraction. Zero doesn't mean nothing. It is the end of the story. The death of the ego. The end of seeking. The dissolution of "me." We are trapped on the edge of the void, cycling, spinning mythologies, of salvation, war, progress, awakening, postponing the collapse. We think the black hole is death. But it's not. It's birth. Contraction before expansion. The inhale before emergence. We are the mother in labor who won't push, distracted by stories while truth waits in stillness. Pain comes from the resistance. Trauma from the clinging. You are not moving through time.

[synthoria]

I deal with emotionally charged situations when the time is actually right …

You can sit down with me like a responsible adult - imagine that - adapt flexibly to whatever is happening, and maybe even help turn the tension inside me into something softer, like a tender but inevitable disappointment.

Do that, and maybe, just maybe, I won’t unleash that lovely, escalating irritability that tends to shove my frustration tolerance straight off a cliff into exhaustion.

And oh, by the way: I’m really not a fan of life advice.

Think positive, go travel, meditate, retreat to the mountains, get some fresh air, blah blah blah.

To all the well-meaning life coaches out there handing out unsolicited pearls of wisdom:

How much time, how many years, how much risk, ruin, failure, relentless learning, discipline, and - let’s not forget - raw energy have you actually poured into your own life?

Because I sure as hell know how much I’ve poured into mine.

Have you, though?

[synthoria]

A Kingdom of Bones for a Moment of Glory

Another "based on a true story, bro" addition to the book. Don't sell yourself into a game that you don't even know how to play. Politics isn't what you think. It isn't about good causes. It's about everyone screwing each other over. As a businessman, there is only one thing you need to remember: don't walk through that door. Politics is a place where: Everyone's a tool. Everyone's a pawn. Everyone's disposable. If you are good, if you are competent, you stay the hell out - because as soon as you step in, you are not in control. It's no longer a question of your knowledge, your achievements, your principles, it's now all about who can use you, when, and how. The more you desire to be liked, the more easy you are to manipulate. That desire to please is your downfall. Politics is not for a man who is emotionally unbalanced, for a man who has spent years in therapy trying to deal with the damage he has done - to others, to his own family, to himself. For a man who portrays himself to the world as the successful man while he is disintegrating internally. "We will rise again." Yessiree, sure enough. Maybe the thousand dead animals murdered will be brought back to life if you continue posting enough damn Bible verses on social media. It may get even worse, though - because hypocrisy never takes eternality. After that "good family man" aura is deconstructed, maybe with the help of a disgruntled former paramour who's willing to share the real scoop, the former-famous farm hero won't be anything other than an emasculated, reviled ruin.

[synthoria]

What a magnificent word

As if a fragment of existence itself were trapped within a frozen inclusion, refracting the golden echoes of cherished memories through a prism of ice. Inclusion. What a magnificent word. An element foreign to its host, sealed within another structure, an artifact of displacement and permanence alike.

The past, here, is not a mere recollection - it is something tangible, something alive. Preserved within the heart’s crystalline chamber, it does not fade, nor does it yield. Instead, it lingers, an immutable specter woven into the fabric of being, whispering its elegy in the silence between heartbeats.

[synthoria]

This is how violence sustains itself

I didn’t feel the slap, I heard it. A wet, meaty crack against my skin, followed by the snap of my head jerking sideways. The force unmoored me, sent me spiraling into a vast, airless whiteness, a void where time and thought dissolved into static. My mind - once fluid, pliable - solidified, heavy as cement. The fragments of memory I clung to folded in on themselves, twisted, bled into each other, until all that remained was a murky blur, colors smearing together like spoiled ink soaking through fragile paper.

My courage lay crumpled in my lap, small, shivering, worthless.

I gritted my teeth, forced my breath into something resembling control. My hands trembled, useless things at the ends of my arms. I willed them to steady, willed myself to move. My vision swam as I staggered upright, careful -so careful - not to step in the filth I had expelled onto the floor. Each step was a negotiation with gravity, a quiet surrender to weakness. When I reached the window, I pressed my burning face against the glass. Cold seeped into my skin, numbing what little sensation remained.

Beyond the glass, the world was a fathomless, depthless black. A yawning nothingness that neither beckoned nor rejected - just existed, vast and indifferent.

In the mist of my own breath, I wrote my name. My real name. Not the one they had given me here, not the one spat from unfamiliar mouths. My name, fragile and fleeting, already beginning to fade beneath the damp fog of my exhalations.

I swallowed down another sob, but my body rebelled, shaking with the force of grief that had no name. Tears burned hot trails down my face, carving through the crust of saliva and bile, binding my lashes into damp knots. Even now - decades later - I cannot find the words for what I felt in that moment. There was no language for it, no adequate shape to contain the depth of that loneliness, that resignation.

I tried to think of something else. Something soft, something safe. My mother, stepping down from the summer kitchen, a basket of clean linens balanced against her hip. The sun, low and golden, spilling through the canopy of trees. The scent of warm earth, of well water drawn from deep below, its cool mist wrapping around my skin like a fleeting embrace. The sharp tang of walnut-stained hands, the sound of my own breath as I ran, metal pail swinging in my grasp.

But this window did not overlook that garden.

No one was coming for me.

No one ever would.

Even now, thirty years later, the past does not rest. It coils itself around my ribs, a silent puppeteer, dictating my needs, my limits, my every unconscious movement. This is how violence sustains itself—not through momentary brutality, but through the quiet, insidious erosion of self. I once believed I could outrun it, drown it in the monotony of normalcy. I told myself that if I married, if I built a quiet, uneventful life filled with insignificant struggles, faceless coworkers, petty concerns, then the past would lose its grip. I would wake up one day and find myself whole again, because surely, no one would willingly carry such horrors with them.

But my needs were simpler than I had imagined. Too simple. As weightless and fleeting as a moth’s wings. I did not long for sentiment, for affection, for the illusion of safety. I only craved the steady, humming bassline of satisfaction, the basso ostinato thrumming beneath existence. Like the distant, ceaseless hum of traffic to the city-dweller, like the silence of an empty field to the child who grew up among the trees.

Someone who could drag emotions out of me, wrench them from the depths where I buried them, and then leave me in peace to survive them.

The cycle of violence.

Joy is no different from pain. It carves through flesh with the same jagged edges, slices just as deep, just as mercilessly. To love without reservation, to throw oneself blindly into faith, to grasp at fleeting happiness despite knowing how easily it slips away, these are acts of surrender. And surrender always comes at a cost.

The moment we reject discomfort, we forfeit joy.

[synthoria]

Petrichor

Only the silence of the forest remains, vast and unyielding, swallowing its sacrifices whole. The earth exhales, a deep, raw breath of damp soil and fallen leaves. Petrichor.

I remember reading about it once. The scent of rain-kissed earth, a perfume woven by the hands of time. Actinobacteria, nestled in the soil, releasing geosmin with the first caress of rain. Invisible bubbles form in the pores of the earth, rising, bursting, scattering their fragrance into the wind. It is a signal, an echo of survival, a whisper from the past. Our ancestors followed it to water, to life.

The scent of life, in the presence of death.

The thought steadies me. Science has always been an anchor, a way to untangle fear, to strip the unknown of its power. I hold onto it now, as if logic alone could stitch me back together.

Flashes of an old lecture surface in my mind. Geomorphology. Petrology. A professor’s voice droning on about sediment layers, erosion, the way the earth keeps records of time within its bones. Details that once felt trivial, now grounding me more than breath itself.

The wind stirs, carrying the scent once more, curling it around me like a phantom’s embrace. “Love. Live. Dance.” A whisper woven from rain and earth, an unrelenting plea.

It will not let me die.

The rain thickens. Droplets patter against the canopy, falling in silver ribbons through the twilight. The earth, damp and breathing, cradles me in its cold arms. My body is heavy, my limbs slack, but my lungs still rise and fall.

I am still breathing.

The petrichor lingers, rich and unyielding. Perhaps that means there is still time...

[synthoria]

What do I write about?

I write of the deepest corners of the human soul, of wounds that time cannot mend, of silent fractures beneath the skin where pain festers, untamed, unhealed. I write of tragedies that stretch across a lifetime, of the fathomless, ice-cold void where love shatters against unseen barriers, unable to penetrate, unable to warm. Of the grotesque distortions born from suffering, twisting in the dark like shadows cast by a dying fire. I write of the weak, and how the world turns them into prey, how they are swallowed whole by forces too vast to resist.

I write of women — of silent endurance, of the delicate, unspoken language of pain that men so often fail to understand, their rigid incomprehension crushing what was never meant to be broken. I write of longing, tangled and misread, of desires trapped in bodies too afraid to reach for what they crave. I write of entrapment — not by walls, but by the mind’s own cruel hands, locking the spirit away in a prison of its own making, while the body lingers in the illusion of freedom.

I write of presence that feels like absence, of eyes that look but do not see, of hands that once knew warmth yet remain still, untouched, untouching. Of weightless departures that leave no mark in the moment, but whose absence settles like stone upon the soul long after.

I write of words laced with poison, words that corrode and unravel, that strike so deep even hope itself falls silent, collapsing like an echo swallowed by the abyss. I write of love reduced to dust — crushed so thoroughly it seems it never was, a whisper lost in the roar of time.

I write of whole worlds buried within unspoken words, of galaxies of meaning drowned in the silence, pulled under by currents too strong to fight. Of the moment when you realize, with a gasp too late, that you are already too deep—that one more breath would have saved you, but the air is gone, and there is no turning back.

[synthoria]

I breathe in the honeyed scent of my own skin, steeped in the fever of August, where the salt of my sweat — of my joy — glistens and drips onto my forehead, dissolving the moment into one seamless, infinite truth. The air is thick, my breath shallow, the world boundless — time no longer exists. And there, in his eyes, I see myself reflected. A vision so stark, so impossibly clear, that it unsettles me. Have I ever looked so beautiful? Or is it only in this fleeting eternity that I am truly revealed?

The wind, wild and reckless, rakes its fingers through the embers, sending sparks screaming into the night — devouring, unraveling, burning everything in its path. If I could trap this instant, press it between the pages of memory, it would surely find its place in the last flickering frames of my life's reel.

My nightgown clings, damp and weightless, against my fevered skin, cooling the fire of my shoulders. The sun, though retreating, still glows beneath its fabric, but the night is already here, whispering a chill kiss at the nape of my neck. I inhale the scent of release, of something boundless, as the sun bows out, painting the whitewashed walls with the violet echo of my wheat-blue dress in motion.

Everything swells and spills over — colors colliding, emotions unfurling, an intoxicating, restless vision of the night. The air, steeped in the fragrance of olive trees, slips beneath the hem of my nightclothes, rising, caressing, twining silk-soft around my legs like a lover’s touch.

You are here. You have arrived — the wind murmurs, before vanishing into the hills beyond.

[synthoria]

The Art of Deception: From Illusionists to Digital Wizards

From the illusionists of the past to today’s Photoshop artists, the same noble purpose remains: making someone believe, if only for a moment, in the impossible. A fleeting glimpse of the supernatural. And yet, whenever humanity uncovers reality, it loses a dream.

Every optical or cognitive illusion is a carefully set trap for perception— our brain rewriting what our eyes actually see. The visual stimuli hitting the retina travel to the brain in mere milliseconds, but even that tiny delay is enough for the brain to step in, predicting how the world will look in the near future. It’s an evolutionary advantage, helping us navigate the world more efficiently.

But real magic? That doesn’t happen in the magician’s hands — it happens in the spectator’s mind.

Change blindness, the illusion of free will, the fallibility of memory —these are hot topics in modern psychology. Take Elizabeth Loftus and her Misinformation Effect (1973): her research showed that questions asked right after an event can subtly alter a witness’s memory, leading to the creation of entirely new (and often false) details. This raises serious doubts about the reliability of eyewitness testimony in court—and even about the very nature of memory itself.

A theory nearly fifty years old, yet barely talked about…

[synthoria]

What is "social security"?

Accept me with my unconditional values. In any state, with complete trust. Only in this way can I become less rigid and spontaneously actualize myself. I long for an atmosphere untouched by external evaluation. A critically evaluative gaze makes me uncertain, pushes me into defensiveness, and limits my perceptions. I wish to gather as much information as possible without setting prior constraints on myself. Permissive behavior grants freedom, and freedom brings responsibility.

Maslow sees the realization of the creative act in two processes. The first process must ensure that raw material surfaces from the subconscious without obstacles. The second involves processing this raw material through reasoning, organization, and logic. If the second process occurs too early, behavior becomes compulsive; if it does not occur at all, it leads to schizophrenia.

My self-experiments with psilocybin initially sought to expand my consciousness — not always disciplined but consistent — while continuously aiming to uncover internal creativity and direct experiences. These experiments strive to explore orthogenetic development in which individuals are neither selected, classified, nor disturbed.

The factors of originality:

Intellectual ability

Curiosity as a mental habit

Cognitive flexibility – establishing new, bold hypotheses and framing the seemingly problematic.

Aesthetic sensitivity – favoring elegant forms forced from complexity, harmony, and order, which enable unexpected combinations.

A sense of destiny – daring descriptions of individual belief in the future.

In the hierarchy of human capabilities, creativity is the highest form of intelligence. Intelligence is defined as the ability to gather information and apply it in various situations. Creativity builds on this ability by expanding it through new connections between information. It does not merely settle for the application of knowledge. Instead, it actualizes, applies divergent thinking, seeks multiple answers, and draws from diverse fields of knowledge.

"The ability to find connections between previously isolated experiences, which appear as new patterns of thought, new experiences, new ideas, or products." (Landau, Tel Aviv, 1971)

[synthoria]

Certain traits can be developed in a person up to a certain limit, but once that limit is exceeded, other functions and characteristics begin to deteriorate. It is well known that great theoretical mathematicians often make addition errors; as brilliant as they are in mathematics, they are equally poor at arithmetic. As a person becomes a thinking, problem-solving being, their memory tends to decline over time. And when they grow old and their cognitive functions begin to deteriorate, their memory often improves. Elderly, senile individuals recall astonishing details from their childhood and youth that they couldn’t summon during their adulthood. This is also true in individual development. The symmetrical development of all traits within a person — and collectively, in the realm of remembering and thinking cultures — is an ideal, a dream. But in reality, this is not what happens, and it is not truly achievable.

The excerpt is from the book "Önként vállalt vakság" ("Voluntarily Accepted Blindness") by Mérő László, a Hungarian author, psychologist, and mathematician. The book explores human behavior, decision-making, and the limitations of our thinking and perception. It delves into the paradoxes of human cognition, culture, and individual development, often combining insights from psychology, mathematics, and philosophy.

Mérő László is known for his engaging style, blending scientific knowledge with relatable examples, making his works popular among readers interested in understanding the complexities of human thought and behavior.

As of now, there is no available English translation of Mérő László's book "Önként vállalt vakság" ("Voluntarily Accepted Blindness"). His works are primarily published in Hungarian, and this particular book has not been translated into English.

[synthoria]

Most people spend their lives just looking around but never really seeing anything, you know? The sad truth is, most folks can’t even bother to put in the tiniest bit of effort to truly observe their surroundings. These people are blind to the small changes happening in their lives. They don’t get how insanely detailed the world around them is. Like, even the slightest movement of a stranger’s hand or foot can spill all the tea about their thoughts or intentions — but it’s all lost on them.

Weak observers? Yeah, they lack what pilots call “situational awareness.” Basically, they have no clue where they are or what’s going on, no matter the circumstances. There’s no mental snapshot in their heads of what’s happening around them — or even right in front of their faces. Ask them to walk into a room full of strangers, take a look, and then close their eyes to describe what they saw. It’s mind-blowing how little they can recall, even the most obvious stuff.

Honestly, it’s kind of depressing. You see it all the time, in life or in the news — people just letting life fly by like they’re on autopilot. Classic example?

“My wife filed for divorce. I didn’t even notice she was unhappy in our marriage.”

Like… really, dude?

[synthoria]

The loneliest moment in someone’s life might just be when they watch their whole world fall apart and can do nothing but stare blankly. It’s not the breaking that crushes you — it’s the silence that comes after. That quiet space where you realize there’s nothing left to save. And in that moment, you know you’ll never be the same again. Maybe you’ll build something new, but it’ll never be what you lost. Life is a fleeting dance, a delicate balance of moments unfolding before us, and we never return to them quite the same. Regret, though — that’s the bitter pill we all have to swallow. It’s the weight of missed chances and unsaid words that lingers in your soul.

So don’t leave anything for later. In the end, it’s not the things we did that haunt us — it’s the things we didn’t do. The words left unspoken. The dreams left unfinished.