“Stop! Here lies the empire of death.”
Paris Catacombs.

Nighttime in Argentina

I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.

— Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

Adolf Kaufmann - Mediterranean Landscape with Ancient Temple.

French Foreign Legion sniper during Operation Zaire 1978

A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Other Stories

Le petit soldat, 1963.

Aaron Duval

White guard soldiers at Joensuu People’s House during the Finnish Civil War, spring 1918.

The longer you look at the monkey, the sooner you realize that you are the monkey.

Generation War

My understanding of happiness was completely different from how other people saw it, and it started bothering me. I couldn't sleep at night, it drove me crazy. So how did I feel? Was I happy or not?
— Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human