The reptilian brain awaits

“Neither a soul nor a personal identity was needed to precipitate a human life, just a cluster of habits clinging to the hollow concept of independent existence, like a crowd of grasping passengers sinking the lifeboat they imagined would save them.  In the background was the ever-present opportunity to slip away into the glittering ocean of a true nature that was not personal either.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last