From Voyage to the End of the Room, Tibor Fischer

When long-left-alone jungle tribes are dragged into the spokes of civilisation, they get mangled. It's not simple matters that result in their destruction. It's not that they're not as well armed as the interlopers, that they can't manage to adapt, or that they have nothing to sell. They're flattened by the awareness that their beliefs have failed: it's not destructive to learn that there is a better way of hunting a peccary, that synthetic fabrics have their uses, or that you need to master another language to trade. All of us can be extremely adaptable when it's to our advantage to do so. One belief trampled is a nuisance, but to see all your answers as litter on the streets of your conquerors... Getting the numbers wrong for a lottery draw, or getting wet because you didn't take an umbrella because you surmised it wouldn't rain is radically different from discovering that your family all hate you and that the bank in which you had your life savings never existed.

Is the loss of the feeling that everything will be all right simply an indication that you've finally grown up or that you're not right in the head? I don't dream any more. Or I do, but not with any conviction. It's like watching a foot ball match when you don't support either team and you don't know any of the players and you don't have any interest in the sport: it passes the time, but you don't care.