The idea that I really like is December 21st, 2012. Try to get a global moment of collective reflection as a way to bring about an uptick in human consciousness.

I grew up in a very artistic, cultured home, but without any kind of spirituality. My parents were secular materialists, so I saw art as having an alternate value.

Through the last centuries, the effort of capitalism has been to take all the things that were human relations and turn them into monetary exchanges.

I think a lot of people who were addicts are actually people who had that strong innate need to experience non-ordinary states of consciousness. But because our society has turned into this destructive culture of these horrible drugs that nullify you, they have that experience in a negative way. And then they lose that capacity forever, to have it in a positive way.

The drive to Black Rock City from San Francisco leads through the Nevada flatlands, past the jittering neon sadness of Reno.

I'm starting to reread a bunch of Gandhi and it was kind of traumatic, because he was so clearly, unbelievably amazing. And the stuff that he is suggesting is so profoundly opposite from what is happening in our world today.

We live in a culture where everything is designed for our comfort or entertainment but nothing satisfies. At our core, we remain insatiable, constantly on the prowl for new commodities and pleasant sensations to fill the void.