I realized that most thoughts are impersonal happenings, like self-assembling machines. Unless we train ourselves, the thoughts passing through our mind have little involvement with our will. It is strange to realize that even our own thoughts pass by like scenery out the window of a bus, a bus we took by accident while trying to get somewhere else. Most of the time, thinking is an autonomous process, something that happens outside of our control. This perception of machine-like quality of the self is something many people discover, then try to overcome, through meditation.
Daniel PinchbeckPeople used to make their own clothes, now they buy clothes. People used to take care of their own kids, now they pay other people do it. And that was because capitalism requires more and more things being turned into money - being turned into profit. But that has reached this absurd limit where there's nothing left to turn into money, and the capitalist system is breaking down.
Daniel PinchbeckIt is the difficult, but unavoidable, task of the modern individual to assimilate consciously all of the contents - from darkest degradation to profoundest purpose - contained in the psyche.
Daniel PinchbeckOur normal human tendencies are distraction and dissipation. We begin one task, then get seduced by some other option, and lose our focus. We drift away from what is difficult and we know to be true, to what is comfortable and socially condoned.
Daniel PinchbeckThe drive to Black Rock City from San Francisco leads through the Nevada flatlands, past the jittering neon sadness of Reno.
Daniel Pinchbeck