"The human condition is hopeless once you have submitted to it by being born ... almost. There is one chance in a million, and that is still good biologic odds. Start from where you are looking down the almost barrel. Nine tenths of your activity is purposeless fidgeting around, lighting another cigarette ... nine tenths deadwood weighing you down ... house odds.
This future may not happenm, if you all strike at the right time in the right places. So we have a human lifetime with a few moments of meaning and purpose scattered here and there ... need not be superb pieces of deadly tradecraft, can just be the night sky over St. Louis, or anywhere. Can be a white cat on a red mud wall looking out over Marakesh ... that male cat is Ra himself. It is fleeting: if you see something beautiful, don't cling to it; if you see something horrible, don't shrink from it, counsels the Tantric sage.
However obtained, the glimpses are rare, so how do we live through the dreary years of deadwood, lumbering our aging flesh from here to there? By knowing that you are my agent, not the doorman, gardener, shopkeeper, carpenter, pharmacist, doctor you seem to be."
William S. Burroughs, "The Western Lands". Nachschlag.