“Our practical projects have run into confusion again and again through failure to see that individual people, nations, animals, insects, and plants do not exist in or by themselves. This is not to say only that things exist in relation to one another, but that what we call “things” are no more than glimpses of a unified process. […] “Individual” is the Latin form of the Greek “atom” — that which cannot be cut or divided any further into separate parts. We cannot chop off a person’s head or remove his heart without killing him. But we can kill him just as effectively by separating him from his proper environment. This implies that the only true atom is the universe — that total system of interdependent “thing-events” which can be separated from each other only in name. […] Confusing names with nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being. This is — rather literally — to be spellbound.”
— Alan Watts, The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
