deciduous and desiccated leaf blowing circuitously on the linear sidewalks of time , without skill , uneducated , the burdens of providing for parents when unable to maintain himself weighing upon him , of course he clings ; and of course the seven billion children on the planet , lacking any higher truth whatsoever , grope and stalk each other , chapter 8 the whys and wherefores of becoming a god or some other potentate but the war that is waged in the mind no doubt has the same depredation , the same devastation , as that on the outside ; and , of course the sublimated war within , as without , is just a less disheveled , less savage , and a more inconspicuous form of predation , evolved and extolled as it is .