When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity... And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.


p. 75 - The Black Room (1975)

Colin Wilson Quotes

When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism...

When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism...

When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism...

When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism...