"Life is, among other things, an elimination contest.  We get eliminated
from this and that and from them and him and her; and finally a germ
or faulty pump valve eliminates them altogether.  A few find the contest
so disagreeable that they eliminate themselves.  They are the 24-karat
fools who miss the important point about it all; namely, that the
major meaning of life is the opportunity to strive and struggle:
an opportunity forever denied inanimate things.  Striving and struggling
implies that the striver is aiming to do something he is not doing
now, or get somewhere different than where he is now."
<p><i>Wayne Valdemar Brandon</i></p>
<p>From a letter to Paul Brandon in 1964.</p>