How's the Patient?

"How's the patient?" he asked Derby.
"Dead to the world."
"But not actually dead."
"No."
"How nice-to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive."- pg 105

In this passage Billy is injected morphine after his attack watching the Cinderella play. I believe this passage holds how sometimes you might feel after certain moments in your life. Even though you are alive, you feel dead on the inside, and feel as if your time on earth was over. Many times you feel it is not worth living and feel as if you were dead to the world, and as explained by the passage, it tells how nice it must be to actually be dead and be considered alive, since actually being dead depends on whether you are feeling it or not. An example is Billy, who in the time warps feels a sense of being dead in both cases. In the war he is injected with morphine which causes him to feel very little or nothing at all while in the hospital he feels life is not worth it and doesn't want to be part of the world anymore. In both cases he is not actually dead, but the circumstances cause him to be dead by what he feels in his own body and thoughts, even if others consider him to be as alive as always. Another example of being dead but being considered alive is the case of people who can only live by being connected to a machine throughout the rest of their life. These people, even if the physical condition of their body indicates that they are alive, aren't really living, for they have no purpose in life and are condemned to live in a fictional state of mind as they dream on forever. Then there are also the people who achieve a great deed during their lifetime, and are remembered throughout time. Even though many of these have died, their legacy lives on, and the good and bad changes they brought when they were dead are remembered, and become what continues to live on as a part of themselves they left behind. Being dead has become something simbolical, since the significance of being alive has so many meanings, and so many ways in which it represents itself.