Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the awareness that life exists all around us, which can lead to feelings of panic when we truly understand this reality.
William S. Burroughs suggests that panic arises from a deep and sudden awareness of the liveliness of our surroundings. This realization can be overwhelming, as it compels us to recognize that everything in our environment has its own vitality and existence, invoking a sense of urgency and disorientation as we confront the complexity of life.
In practice
In a discussion about awareness in art, one might use this quote to highlight the artist's connection to their subject.
God save the Queen and a fascist regime β¦ a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
Language is a virus from outer space.
One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and donβt know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
But still, everything is for Jesus; so like that everything is beautiful, even though it is difficult.
Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.
I never make a distinction between private life and politics - that's a petit bourgeois thing. How can you make a stand against Nazi Germany, or in Rwanda, when you live life by making that distinction?
Life has never been All or Nothing- it's All and Nothing. Forget the binaries.
We tend to defend vigorously things that in our deepest hearts we are not quite certain about. If we are certain of something we know, it doesn't need defending.
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