Indeed, one of the highest pleasures is to be more or less unconscious of one’s own existence, to be absorbed in interesting sights, sounds, places, … - Alan Watts

[C]onsciousness is no mere phosphorescent scum upon the foundations of fire and rock - a late addition to a world which is essentially unfeeling and mineral. [...] It is in the living organism that the whole world feels: it is only by virtue of eyes that stars themselves are light.

For when we have Eros dominated by reason instead of Eros expressing itself with reason, we create a culture that is simply against life, in which the human organism has to submit more and more to the needs of mechanical organization, to postpone enjoyment in the name of an even more futile utility.

Everybody loves to play this game — the game of hide-and-seek, the game of scaring oneself with uncertainty. It is human. It is why we go to the theater or movies and why we read novels. And our so-called real life, seen from the position of the mystic, is a version of the same thing. The mystic is the person who has realized that the game is a game. It is hide-and-seek, and everything associated with the “hide” side of it is connected to those places within us where we as individuals feel lonely, impotent, put down, and so on — the negative side of existence.