self-preservation
Harry wanted to preserve himself for posterity. He wanted to press himself gently between the pages of a book, but he couldn't work out a way to prevent himself from squishing when the weight came down. He thought about cutting off his arms and preserving them in amber, but he could never figure out quite how to chop off the second arm when he'd finished doing the first. Even if he did this, of course, it'd be the legs next, then the lower torso, chest and finally the head. He'd probably need assistance or a shiny new machine and a good supply of liquid amber.
He had tried encasing himself in concrete once. He'd been walking down the street and came across a newly laid wet pavement. Suddenly the brilliant scheme of preservation hit him, and he lay down right there in the wet pavement and rolled around in the cement until it covered his clothes, his skin and his face, but then one of the builders came back early from lunch and chased him away. He lay himself down to dry in the sun, but the cement layer was too thin to preserve him and just cracked and peeled, so he went home and had a bath.
Another time he tried to preserve himself in a block of ice, but it was just too cold and he didn't want to be preserved while shivering, in case that's what people would think of him in the future when he was discovered and placed in a museum. That, of course, was the drive of Harry's insanity. He knew he could never see the future, he just wanted the future to see him. Maybe that makes him saner than the rest of us.
