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Distraction Is Our Habitual State. Not The Distraction Of The Person Who Withdraws From The World In Order To Shut Himself Up In The Secret And Ever-changing Land Of His Fantasy, But The Distraction Of The Person Who Is Always Outside Himself, Lost In The Trivial, Senseless, Turmoil Of Everyday Life.

-Octavio Paz

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Distraction Is Our Habitual

Octavio Paz

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Distraction Is Our Habitual State. Not The Distraction Of The Person Who Withdraws From The World In Order To Shut Himself Up In The Secret And Ever-changing Land Of His Fantasy, But The Distraction Of The Person Who Is Always Outside Himself, Lost In The Trivial, Senseless, Turmoil Of Everyday Life.

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Believing Ourselves To Be Possessors Of Absolute Truth Degrades Us: We Regard Every Person Whose Way Of Thinking Is Different From Ours As A Monster And A Threat And By So Doing Turn Our Own Selves Into Monsters And Threats To Our Fellows.

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I Sat At The Foot Of A Huge Tree, A Statue Of The Night, And Tried To Make An Inventory Of All I Had Seen, Heard, Smelled, And Felt: Dizziness, Horror, Stupor, Astonishment, Joy, Enthusiasm, Nausea, Inescapable Attraction. What Had Attracted Me? It Was Difficult To Say: Human Kind Cannot Bear Much Reality.

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