The hard-bitten kind of person is always, as it were, a partial suicide; some of himself is already dead. If, then, we are to be fully human and full… - Alan Watts

Carried to its final extreme, the logical end of this type of reaction to life is suicide. The hard-bitten kind of person is always, as it were, a partial suicide; some of himself is already dead

If, then, we are to be fully human and fully alive and aware, it seems that we must be willing to suffer for our pleasures.

I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware.

"For
the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from
the standpoint of someone standing aside from it — as if it were quite
other than himself — and then trying to grasp it.

But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship on
the hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with the
world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts — based on the
realization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process."

De rivieren stromen; de bloemen bloeien; je loopt over straat - nou èn?'
Nou èn? Nou ja, wat wil je nog meer? Hier is iemand die eet uit de kruidenierswinkel en toch nog klaagt dat hij sterft van de honger. Maar het woord en begrip God, Brahman, Tao, of wat je wilt, is eigenlijk geïntroduceerd voor dergelijke ondankbare magen. Het is een manier om het leven te benadrukken door er de aandacht op te vestigen, zoals we woorden onderstrepen of cursief schrijven.