" ... my friend commented that our obsession with variety has a lot to do with having lost the gift of savoring a simple tomato, with our inability to exits in the world of the senses, I our desire to compensate for those losses, there are some who go to such extremes as that inoffensive swing, to say nothing of real perversions. He told me about a friend named Tom, who always carried a small notebook in his pocket so he could make a mark for each woman he had 'possessed'. And what were their names? This easy rider had forgotten to write them down; he did not 'possess' them even in memory. In his exhausting career of one-night stands, Tom had learned less than other men who have loved only one woman and known her in every sense of the world. His obsession is like that of compulsive eaters who gulp their food without tasting it or those who drink to excess without ever discovering the mystery of the grape; like people who accumulate money and belongings with insatiable thirst and never experience plenitude."