Only Apparently Real

I used to believe the universe was basically hostile. And that I was misplaced in it, I was different from it... fashioned in some other universe and placed here, you see. So it zigged while I zagged. And that it had singled me out only because there was something weird about me. I didn't really groove with the universe.

I had a lot of fears that the universe would discover just how different I was from it. My only suspicion about it was that it would find out the truth about me, and its reaction would be perfectly normal: it would get me. I didn't feel that it was malevolent, just perceptive. And there's nothing worse than a perceptive universe if there's something wrong with you.

But this year I realized that that's not true. That the universe is perceptive, but it's friendly...I just don't feel that I'm different from the universe anymore.

- Philip K Dick in an interview, 1974
(from Only Apparently Real)