There is no break from the insistence of reality. I could walk over to the window, and stand looking out, and try, for a few minutes, to do nothing, but one can never really do nothing, for even if one exerts no voluntary muscles, one can’t shut off one’s consciousness, one can only try to channel it, or redirect it, or observe it through the practice of meditation or prayer. Except, I suppose, during sleep. But even then one is often working through feelings and dilemmas, by way of dreams. So that it becomes difficult to view one’s self as anything more than a collection of highly excitable cells, some of which retain memories and desires that produce, through whatever mechanisms allow for self-awareness, a constant stream of psychic activity.