To live outside the pale is to wither and die. Beyond the pale there are only dressed−up cadavers. They are wound up each day, like alarm clocks. They perform like seal; they die like box office receipts. But in the seething [bad word] there is a growth as of plants, an animal warmth almost suffocating, a vitality which [bad word] from rubbing and glueing together, a hope which is physical as well as spiritual, a contamination which is dangerous but salutary. Small souls perhaps, burning like tapers, but burning steadily — and capable of throwing portentous shadows on the walls which hem them in.

All goes round and round, creaking, wobbling, lumbering, whimpering some−tunes, but round and round and round. Then, if you [bad word] very still, standing on a stoop, for instance, and carefully think no thoughts, a myopic, bestial clarity besets your vision. There is a wheel, there are spokes, and there is a hub. And in the center of the hub there is — exactly nothing.

(c) Генри Миллер, "Сексус"