but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile, - Alan Watts

Here is a person who knows that in two weeks' time he has to undergo a surgical operation. In the meantime he is feeling no physical pain; he has plenty to eat; he is surrounded by friends and human affection; he is doing work that is normally of great interest to him. But his power to enjoy these things is taken away by constant dread. He is insensitive to the immediate realities around him. His mind is preoccupied with something that is not yet here. It is not as if he were thinking about it in a practical way, trying to decide whether he should have the operation or not, or making plans to take care of his family and his affair if he should die. These decisions have already been made. Rathre, he is thinking about the operation in an entirely futile way, which both ruins his present enjoyment of life an dcontributes nothing to the solution of any problem. But he cannot help himself.

What is real, if you have decided to live in the dimension of space and time, is muscle and nerve.

Man can never understand his freedom while he regards himself as the mere instrument of fate or while he limits his freedom to whatever he his ego can do to snatch from life the prizes which it desires. To be free man must see himself and life as a whole, not as active power and passive instrument but as two aspects of a single activity.