“The ad men have persuaded you that if you could get this kind of car, this kind of yacht, this kind of house, this kind of scene, whatever it may be, you should. That’s the thing in life. That’s what’s important. And it doesn’t make people happy at all. And then they wonder why it doesn’t, and feel cheated. And they have to go to psychoanalysts, and churches, and things like that, to be persuaded that it’s coming sometime. Somehow, the thing that is always seems to be missing. And there’s nothing missing at all. Except, I mean, supposing you’re absolutely starved, and you just don’t have the normal flow of energy through your organism. Then, of course, you need food. Or if you’re freezing, you need shelter. But in the ordinary way, when you are fed and sheltered, there isn’t anything missing. It’s all here. But nobody is here to see it. Everybody is wandering after something else in the distance.”

— Alan Watts, Ecological Awarness