Any system which says, This is a rotten world, wait for the next, give up, do nothing, succumb--that may be the basic Lie and if we participate in believing it and acting (or rather not acting) on it we involve ourselves in the Lie and suffer dreadfully... which only reinforces that particular Lie.
Interpretation
The quote critiques a fatalistic worldview that encourages inaction and despair.
Philip K. Dick's quote highlights the danger of a mindset that promotes hopelessness and resignation to a flawed world. By choosing to believe in such a 'Lie,' individuals not only contribute to their own suffering but also perpetuate a cycle of negativity that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It emphasizes the importance of action and resistance against despair as a means to create change and challenge the narrative of hopelessness.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity, this quote can emphasize the importance of action.
We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present - deja vu.
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.
"Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?" "An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for." "Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."
The universe is information and we are stationary in it, not three dimensional and not in space or time.
A man is an angel that has gone deranged.
Unsatisfied desire is the characteristic feature of human life. That is the common fact out of which both pessimism and optimism are constructed. Dwell on the impossibility of ever getting a state of complete and permanent satisfaction with what you have, and you become a pessimist. Dwell on the opportunity for endless growth and conquest which this same fact makes possible, and you become an optimist.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
The purpose of soul questions is to open yourself deeper and deeper until all that is left is the power and beauty you are bringing to the lives of others.
It is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling - and indeed healthy - to ask why you have been given so much.
So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?
I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca-or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
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