“It was as if, at such times, he was permanently suspended in the blissful but always vanishing space between desire and satisfaction. In that region of the self that one is no longer anguished by the absence of something one feels to be necessary for one's salvation but not yet saddened by the disappointment that attainment of desire always seemed to bring. For strong desire, desire that radiates outward through all the regions of the body, always seemed to involve the hope or belief that attainment of the object of desire whether a person, place, or situation will change everything completely, will end all absence and yearning, all effort and struggle. That it will stem somehow the slow sad passage of time.”