Sanctity or sagehood as an exclusive vocation is [...] symptomatic of an exclusive mode of consciousness in particular. Its basic assumption is that … - Alan Watts

...[W]ords can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.

"Fictions are useful so long as they are taken as fictions. They are then
simply ways of "figuring" the world which we agree to follow so that
we can act in cooperation, as we agree about inches and hours, numbers
and words, mathematical systems and languages. If we have no
agreement about measures of time and space, I would have no way of
making a date with you at the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth
Avenue at 3 P.M. on Sunday, April 4."

We can hardly begin to consider this problem unless it is clear that the craving for security is itself a pain and a contradiction, and that the more we pursue it, the more painful it becomes. This is true in whatever form security may be conceived. You want to be happy, to forget yourself, and yet the more you try to forget yourself, the more you remember the self you want to forget. You want to escape from pain, but the more you struggle to escape, the more you inflame the agony. You are afraid and want to be brave, but the effort to be brave is fear trying to run away from itself. You want peace of mind, but the attempt to pacify it is like trying to calm the waves with a flat-iron.