Laughter is the loaded latency given us by nature as part of our native equipment to break up the stalemates of our lives and urge us on to deeper and more complex forms of knowing.
Jean HoustonWe're in a decaying culture now. Naturally, the young people in the culture are going to feel themselves to be products of the decay.
Jean HoustonWhen a culture is not mythologically instructed, not instructed in story that gives us a call, then we start looking for quasi-stories, little toxic stories that keep our selves alerted and spared until we find another story.
Jean HoustonWe all get betrayed or we all betray. Life is so complex that it's almost impossible to avoid that. Betrayal is also a critical theme in all the world's great stories. If Christ had not been betrayed, would you have had the resurrection?
Jean HoustonIf you are going to learn mathematics, you have to learn it not simply as an abstraction but as it is applied. I always say to teachers, for goodness sake, take the kids out first to look at the stars in order to understand infinity.
Jean HoustonWhat happens is that you discover you're carrying so much weight that 90 percent of what you thought yesterday you are thinking about today and will think about again tomorrow. Your mind doesn't change because you are carrying too large a load. So the mind is caught. It's seized by its own structures. It can't consider different ways of thinking or doing or being or relating. It's all you can do with your psychic energy to keep pulling yourself along with this huge bag that you are dragging behind you.
Jean Houston