Nobody Wants To Feel They're Not A

I Eventually Realized That Direct Experience Is The Most Valuable Experience I Can Have. Western Man Is So Surrounded By Ideas, So Bombarded With Opinions, Concepts, And Information Structures Of All Sorts, That It Becomes Difficult To Experience Anything Without The Intervening Filter Of These Structures.

If You Don't Know History, Then You Don't Know Anything. You Are A Leaf That Doesn't Know It Is Part Of A Tree.

When You Have A Strongly Held Belief, Don't You Think It's Important To Express That Belief Accurately?

People Were So Naive About Plants, Ellie Thought. They Just Chose Plants For Appearance, As They Would Choose A Picture For The Wall. It Never Occurred To Them That Plants Were Actually Living Things, Busily Performing All The Living Functions Of Respiration, Ingestion, Excretion, Reproduction---and Defense.

We All Live Every Day In Virtual Environments, Defined By Our Ideas.