Metaphysics in Willworld: page 60

Hal is wondering what is happening. In the previous page (page 59, which I posted on January 1 of this year) his angel friend Glance has told him that she operates outside the "consensus reality", and therefore she can see, that is, understand, more than ordinary people. Now, as he tastes the water from a desert oasis, he is pulled down into it by the forces that do not want him to search beneath that same reality. Hal is afraid to do what has not been done before, his fears represented by the malevolent faces shouting at him and the tentacles pulling him down.

Hal can either give in to them and be safe, or he can resist them and be free but possibly insane.

I think the idea of choosing between Safety and Freedom was something Seth thought about every day. It is something that we all face to one extent or another, no matter what our lives are like. It is certainly Biblical, as the Israelites in Egypt looked at Moses and the potential for freedom with an unknown future, versus security within their slavery. For Seth this choice was at the center of his own humanness, and he was determined to choose Freedom at every opportunity. He tended to err on the side of risk-taking, choosing to disregard safety even in places where there was nothing real at stake. But I think he didn't want to miss out and find himself locked into a stifling safety. Like Hal, he preferred the possibility of insanity.

It was almost certainly what led to his death, as he stood on top of that building one drizzly winter evening and considered whether he should listen to the voice of his uneasiness about heights, or rebel against that inner dread and do the very thing that he feared.

I believe that this page shows how Seth saw himself. Those forces that are threatening to pull you down, you can resist them, and you must. Frightening though they are, you do have power over them, and they know it; you must not let them master you.