Authenticity is an alignment between your beliefs, your desires and your choices in the world. Desires that are in alignment with core beliefs generate powerful actions. Like a wave that draws from the depths of the ocean, actions connected to your authentic self are more likely to manifest your intentions.

I've never met anyone with a perfect upbringing. It seems to me that life on planet Earth just doesn't work that way. The basic challenges of getting our needs met and managing boundaries are inherent in growing up human.

One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage.

There were a lot of video store owners and managers out of work, once pornography became more about streaming and downloads. But the other thing is that there are a lot of people who make money by finding a place to stand and add almost nothing. It's particularly ironic if your job title is pimp. On some level, in a healthier world where sex work could be rationalized and the risk reduced, your whole job title would be extraneous anyway. It's not exactly a point of great grievance if you're a pimp that suddenly your prostitutes don't require the same level of reliance.

Rural America's not coming back. That idea was lost with the Industrial Revolution.

I'm making a lot of money. I should be paying a lot more taxes. I'm not paying taxes at a rate that is even close to what people were paying under Eisenhower. Do people think America wasn't ascendant and wasn't an upwardly mobile society under Eisenhower in the '50s? Nobody was looking at the country then and thinking to themselves, "We're taxing ourselves into oblivion." Yet there isn't a politician with balls enough to tell that truth because the whole system has been muddied by the rich. It's been purchased.

How do we allow God into our minds, bodies, relationships, and life? We stop squeezing the divine out through our preconceived notions of what is sacred and what is profane. When we assume the mind-set that everything is ultimately divine, though sometimes more disguised than others, then we can see that all of our thoughts, impulses, and desires arise from and can bring us back to awareness of the sacred.