"The local-tone is the intrinsic value of a thing - excluding any effects of light. The local-tone of a common pearl is very nearly white; that of a lump of coal, nearly black."

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If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.

— Alan Watts