We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. . Alan W. Watts
About This Quote

In the quote above, it is obvious that Kurt Vonnegut was probably a very intelligent person. He went on to talk about how our society has been hypnotized by the illusion of time. People have become so accustomed to the symbols and ideas we use to measure time, we have lost touch with reality. We often use these concepts to describe and explain life and the world around us, but we need to realize that these concepts do not exist in life itself and they should not be used as a measure of the quality of our time on earth.

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More Quotes By Alan W. Watts
  1. The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.
  2. This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
  3. The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
  4. If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don't like doing,...
  5. Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.
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