text: yet at the same time as the eastern sages also knew man is a worm and food for worms this is the paradox he is out of nature and hopelessly in it he is dual up in the stars and yet housed in a heart pumping breath gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill marks to prove it his body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die