So, am I a madman or a joker? Or simply a scribbler? - René Daumal

If I were to tell this story the way history is usually written or the way each of us recalls his own past, which means recording only the most glorious moments and inventing a new continuity for them, I should omit these little details and say that our eight stout hearts drummed from morning to night in time with a single all-encompassing desire — or some such lie. But the flame that kindles desire and illuminates thought never burned for more than a few seconds at a stretch. The rest of the time we tried to remember it.
Fortunately the demands of daily work, in which each of us had his vital role, reminded us that we had come aboard of our own free will, that we were indispensable to one another, and that we were on a ship — that is to say, in a temporary habitation, designed to transport us somewhere else. If anyone forgot it, someone else lost no time in reminding him.

Then he went on:
“As for the unconscious, I might not speak of it, granted, but I speak to it. Let the unconscious answer me, if it can do so without expiring in the process.”
On not receiving an answer, he continued:
“Right, in that case I’ll go on to the very end of my explanations. Besides, all roads lead to Man. Listen or don’t listen, as you choose, but do not — on any account — forget to drink.

A man who makes a plate or a shirt or a loaf of bread or anything our great great ancestors called a work of art, has no need to try to be sincere; all he can do is practice his craft to the best of his ability. But once he starts making useless things, how can he not be sincere?