In order to become mature, in short, we must not only reject the authority of our parents — but at the same time, in order to replace them, we must kill off our fantasy selves. Only by killing this fantasy self can a man become fully mature. Unless he does so, he is still in a state of rebellion, a perpetual state of immaturity…
Ultimately, to overcome our fantasy self is the supreme contribution that a man can make to mankind. All the fantasies that are around us, that infect the collective human organism, are in the end just one fantasy, made up of all the separate unresolved images and acts of self assertion that are fed into it from each individual fantasy-self of all the thousands of millions of human beings on earth…
Every man who asserts his ego against the general framework in any way, however small, or adds to the sum of unresolved imagery, however idly, is playing his tiny part in increasing the sum of the world’s discords and miseries…
However much one wishes to change the outside world, the only thing one can change or have any control over is ultimately oneself. Which is why the greatest good any man can do to change the world is the least dramatic act of all — to withdraw his own contribution from the general sum of evil.
