Rachel Carson on Man’s Challenge
“You go out into a world where mankind is challenged, as it has never been challenged before, to prove its maturity and its mastery — not of nature, but of itself. Therein lies our hope and our destiny.”
Alan Watts on the Artist’s Job
“The artist’s problem is to avoid changing the rules so radically that no bridge remains over which the public can follow him.”
Alan Watts
Timothy Leary’s 8 Circuits of Consciousness
To any of you fellow psychonauts, cosmonauts, spiritual seekers and reality leapers, I recently read this text below in a fantastic (must-read!) book called Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson (hint: regardless of subtitle it has very little to do with the Illuminati).
If your experience has been anything similar to mine, this may make what scientists refer to as a fuck ton of sense. Please note, however, this is just a model. You can learn more about this model and how to keep it as a model here.
Collecting here for future research. (more…)
Hunter S. Thompson on Progress & Lost Causes
“Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top.
At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles, a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other that kept me going.”
Prince on Success
“I’ve been to the mountain top, there’s nothing there.”
Jack Gilbert on Handling Injustice
“To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”
Found in the epic Magic Lessons podcast, episode #201. From a poem called A Brief for the Defense. Here’s that poem:
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
Seth Godin on Writing
“I made a decision to write for my readers, not to try to find more readers for my writing.”
About Your Sad Parts…
“There are parts of you
that want the sadness.
Find them out. Ask them why.”
Alan Watts on Vices and Naughtiness
“I have no wish to defend my ‘vices’ with propaganda, making out that they are in fact virtues which others should follow. I am only saying that I distrust people who show no sign of naughtiness or self-indulgence.”
Rumi on What You Think You Want
I know that God will give me my daily bread…
When I run after what I think I want,
My days are a furnace of distress and anxiety;
If I sit in my own place of patience,
What I need flows to me,
And without any pain.From this I understand that
What I want also wants me,
Is looking for me
And attracting me;
When it cannot attract me
Any more to go to it,
It has to come to me.There is a great secret
In this for anyone
Who can grasp it.