The erroneous belief that one is an individual at all — what Schopenhauer called the principium individuationis — may be the deeper truth hiding behind Michael’s face plates. (It would also help explain his fondness for Lakmé, an opera set among the transcendental Brahmin, for whom ultimate reality is likewise “All-One” and individual existence merely an emanation, made possible by the illusory veil of Maya.) In the dream we are separate beings. In reality we are one. If only there were a way to reach out to the hinges of your individual face plate and tear away all that stops you from knowing that! But Michael never reaches this awakened consciousness: like so many of us he remains stuck between those twin poles of want and boredom.
Zadie Smith, "Windows on the Will"
