The world is on fire! Why am I sitting in front of my computer? It is because I don’t have a fire extinguisher for the world, and there isn’t a global 911 to call.

What you're looking for, you won't find. But only by looking for it can it find you.

I can't give a formula for how to spread joy, but I know that the source of the joy is one's own joy, and that that is not distinct from pleasure and fulfillment of desires. So I ask: What makes me feel alive? What is the expression of my inner wild? What would really feel good? What if what makes me feel alive leads me toward the deeper joys, which are found in generosity and service, in creating things that are beautiful to me? Maybe the world needs more of that. How many petroleum company executives are doing their work because it's beautiful to them? Not very many, I bet.

Enlightenment is a group activity.

Even if I had money to invest I wouldn't invest it in oil companies - - or their bankers, suppliers, customers ... really that means the whole stock market. I'm not opposed to divestment, but I think by itself it won't get very far. The demand is still there, the fossil fuel infrastructure is still there. Where I would like to see our political energy go is to stop ecocide on a local and bioregional level. Each new energy project involves horrible abuse of mountaintops, groundwater, forests, etc., because all the easy resources have already been extracted.

We are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world.

Narratives that were taken for granted when I was a kid are still there, but they don't have the same depth and fervor anymore. Even the makers of the propaganda don't fully believe the propaganda. The surface structures are more frozen than they ever were, but the core is hollowing out, and it's becoming very fragile. People don't believe in the system anymore. But they're still going along with it because, one, they don't know what else is possible, they don't even know anything else is possible. Secondly, everybody else is doing it. So they go through the motions.