To practice with an end in view is to have one eye on the practice and the other on the end, which is lack of concentration, lack of sincerity. - Alan Watts

Now, if the gulls and the fish do not philosophize, they have no consciousness of life being good as a whole or bad as a whole. So when we philosophize and pity the poor fish, that really turns out to be just our own problem.

man seems to be unable to live without myth, without the belief that the routine and drudgery, the pain and fear of this life have some meaning and goal in the future.

But the mind-body is a system which conserves and accumulates energy. While doing this it is properly lazy. When the energy is store, it is just as happy to move, and yet to move skillfully — along the line of least resistance. Thus it is not only necessity, but also laziness, which is the mother of invention.