“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes”
- Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time: La Prisonnière
Renowned Psychedelic Chemist/Biochemist Alexander Shulgin’s home laboratory (“Godfather” of MDMA, author of PIKHAL/TIKHAL ) picture by DoubleBlind Magazine
James Baldwin from Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris
“It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.”
- James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
From Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, Episode 4, "Sacrifice and Bliss”
“It will always be the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known or told.”
- Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
A colored magnetic resonance imaging scan of a healthy human brain.
Credit: K H Fung/Science Photo Library
“To get at [one’s religion] you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious sense of the whole residual cosmos as an everlasting presence, intimate or alien, terrible or amusing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone possesses. This sense of the world’s presence, appealing as either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant, about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary completest of all our answers to the question…….Why then not call these reactions our religion?”
- William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
“The way of science is paved with discarded theories which were once declared self-evident;”
-Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
Aldous Huxley interview by Mike Wallace on May 18, 1958, from the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin
“I urge you not to distract yourself. Instead, savor awakening. Take advantage of it. Pause as you stare into the photograph of the younger you. Let the poignant moment sweep over you and linger a bit; taste the sweetness of it as well as the bitterness. Keep in mind the advantage of remaining aware of death, of hugging its shadow to you. Such awareness can integrate the darkness with your spark of life and enhance your life while you still have it. To way to value life, the way to feel compassion for others, the way to love anything with greatest depth is to be aware that these experiences are destined to be lost.”
- Irvin D. Yalom Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
Synergy emerging between higher resolution structural biology/proteomics/genomics and machine learning and AI predictive modeling. from Nature Biotechnology Journal
“To be with another in this [empathic] way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish. Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, and strong - yet subtle and gentle - way of being.”
- Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being
“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning”
- Werner Heisenberg
“At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient... only the universe rearranging itself.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life
“In spite of everything, the universe is all right.”
- Aldous Huxley
“. . . Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.”
-Kurt Vonnegut