Yet my mind — thanks be to the most high eternal gods! — can never rest for more than an albatross’s glide upon the slopes of the past. Today, writing my memories, I feel as if I were playing a sort of practical joke upon myself. I am hot on the trail of the future. I can imagine myself on my deathbed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.

Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, Chapter 54