“The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety. The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.” ~Irvin Yalom Life is about experiences, both good and bad. An adventurous lifestyle may have its fair share of “bad” experiences, due to its inherent risk, but it also tends to be more rewarding. When it comes down to it, a true adventurer would rather have a bad adventure than none at all. There is a crossroads between comfortable touri

“The generosity of the magnanimous man should include gracefulness…I believe you capable of any evil, therefore I desire of you the good. May your goodness be your ultimate self-over-powering.” ~Nietzsche In a world where the richest 100 people own more wealth than the poorest four billion, you know something has got to give in order to bring the world back into a healthier balance. In our world, money equals power. Too much power tends to corrupt. We all know this, and yet w

“If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” ~Voltaire Belief in God is a funny thing. As a species, we’re torn between thousands of different versions. As individuals, we’re influenced by whatever God our forefathers passed down to us. Having been indoctrinated into never questioning that God for fear of blasphemy, religious pressures have us rigidly clinging to whatever God we were raised with. But when it comes down to it, every single one of us has a differ

“Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask yourself this crucial question, does this path have heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn’t, then it is of no use.” ~Carlos Castaneda The art of shadowing yourself is a ruthless form of self-overcoming made popular by the writings of Carlos Castaneda (he called it stalking the self), who was inspired by the Yacqui Shaman Don Juan. The shadower needs four essential qualities: ruthlessness, cunning, patience

“I would never die for my beliefs because I could be wrong.” ~Bernard Russell What is the great lassitude? It is an all-encompassing, unhealthy comfort that never allows for healthy discomfort. It is insecure security that keep you stuck in a rut. It’s a lazy contentment that prevents growth. It’s an excuse to do nothing when something clearly needs to be done. And the only way to break its spell is to get uncomfortable, to breach security, to live dangerously. The great lass

“Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.” ~Heraclitus The sickness of our society is actually hidden within its order. The seeming order of our society hides the fact that it is fundamentally sick. How do we know it’s sick? It’s self-evident. Any society that pollutes its own air, water, food, and minds is a profoundly sick society. And here we are. As such, the “order” of our society (tribe) is in desperate need of higher order. We can probably a

“If you would be a real seeker of truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” ~Rene Descarte An iconoclast is an individual who personifies a rebellious, contrarian, and oppositional spirit. They would rather reduce the world to a tabula rasa than become any kind of idealogue. More existential than teleological, more syncretistic than monistic, more unorthodox than orthodox, iconoclasts are icons of mutability, able to ad

1.) Religion claims to have all the answers; spirituality questions all claims: “People afraid of losing their truth tend to be more violent than people who are used to looking at the world from several different viewpoints. Questions you cannot answer are usually better for you than answers you cannot question.” ~Yuval Noah Harari Religion is narrow-minded because it believes it has all the answers. Spirituality is openminded because it dares to question all answers. The sim

“If we continue abusing the earth this way, there is no doubt that our civilization will be destroyed. This turnaround will take enlightenment, awakening. The Buddha attained individual awakening. Now we need a collective awakening to stop the course of destruction.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh What would a collective awakening look like? In a world where comfort clashes with courage and security clashes with freedom, how does our civilization—dumbed down by bipartisan claptrap and anti

“Someone once asked me, “What’s at the core of every human being? ‘Bullshit,’ I replied.” ~Gary John Bishop We are all full of shit to some degree or another. Knowing it sets us free. But why stop there? Sometimes, awareness isn’t enough. There must be action. Rather than wallow in the muck and mire of our bullshit, why not attempt to be become less full of shit? Rather than be driven by the bullshit of your past, why not allow yourself to be pulled up by the bullhorns of the