I do not live my life to have fun. The way I experience the meaning and value of my life is by throwing all my passion for living into everything I do. I am afraid that if having pleasure were the purpose of my life, then three shots of whisky a day would be it. And if I were to take that seriously, how could I help but think that I live anything but a pretty wretched existence.

Normally we waste our whole loves playing with toys. The first toy people clamor for when they are born is their mother’s breast. Then, it is on to teddy bears and electric trains, and as we get older, bicycles, watches, cameras, and finally jewelry, clothes, and the opposite sex.

When you consider things carefully, it seems that we have a tendency to fill our whole lives with toys, trying to make sense out of our lives only in relation to these toys. In this respect, I cannot help but feel that a lot of scholarly study and research and all of one’s trying to get rich in business is just so much playing with toys. The same goes with the attitude of competing with the Joneses as well as other forms of social climbing.

Throwing one’s energies into the pursuit of fame appears to be a meaningful way for a person to spend life, although, fundamentally, it is nothing more than another link in the chain of playing with toys.

A life which relies on toys for its value means nothing more than one is being led around by those toys, thus losing sight of living with true purpose or intensity. Having a passion for life means only to pour all of our life forces into your true self. Life, in terms of everything we encounter, the people with whom we come into contact, all the material things we use and handle every day — that is our life and our true Self, and it is in this that we throw our life force.

There is no refuge, no special place outside the life of our true Self, nor anything apart from the activities of that Self.

The true Self includes the entire world in which it lives. Therefore, there is nothing that is not a part of it. Everything encountered is life. Everything encountered is self. To devote ourselves to everything we encounter and throw our life force into doing just that is quite different from simply exhausting our energies playing with toys.