When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy.
Source: Cronenberg on Cronenberg, ch. 3, 1992.
-- David Cronenberg, (May 15 1943-____), Canadian film maker; The King of Venereal Horror produced The Dead Zone, 1983 and The Fly, 1986.