"I have said: "Blow out the lamp! Day is here!" And you keep saying: "Give me a lamp so I can find the day. - Frank Herbert

A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation

The smoke! The golden smoke!
His robe whipped upward, turning him until his face was directed downward into the abyss. With his gaze on the depths, he recognized a maelstrom of boiling rapids there, the mirror of his life-precipitous currents and plunges, all movement gathering up all substance. Leto’s words wound through his mind on a path of golden smoke: “Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.” Moneo fell freely then in the ecstasy of awareness. The universe opened for him like clear glass, everything flowing in a no Time.

They who learn the lesson of self-deception too well shall perish by that deception.