So every spiritual journey ends by closing the circle. The frightened mind that runs away from everyday terrors meets the seeking mind that wants a b… - Alan Watts

The frightened mind that runs away from everyday terrors meets the seeking mind that wants a better world.

"By trying to understand everything in terms of memory, the past, and words, we have, as it were, had our noses in the guidebook for most of our lives, and have never looked at the view. Whitehead's criticism of traditional education is applicable to our whole way of living:

"We are too exclusively bookish in our scholastic routine... In the Garden of Eden Adam saw the animals before he named them: in the traditional system, children named the animals before they saw them.

The outsider cannot just barge in like Santa Claus and put things to right — especially our kind of outsider who, because he has no sense of belonging in the world, invariably smells like an interferer. He does not really know what he wants, and therefore everyone suspects that there are limitless strings attached to his gifts. For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.

"[W]hen "the rule of law" becomes absolutized and everything is done by the book or the computer, people call out in desperation for the intervention of a reasonable human being."