We have new media, new forms of connectivity, and an enormous transference of knowledge. When you study evolution, you see that when new genes meet and multiply, they create new contexts and new species. In a sense, the gene-pool of knowledge and of people connecting at all levels is literally spawning a kind of mind-pool of possibilities.

Certainly one is brought to the brink of one's sense of who one is, what one has to do, why me, why now, why in this time in history? I am really driven, believe it or not, am awakened by a sense of being in this powerful axis, this turning point in human history.

Journalists are among a select group, along with warriors and executioners who are authorized to do harm. As James Fallows says, a lot of journalists think that isn't so, and that everything will wash out ultimately. But I don't think they are aware of the long-term damage.

If you're looking ecologically, then we are in very big trouble, yes. But if you're talking about people sinking, I'm not so sure that's true. There are cycles of rise and fall, as there have been since time immemorial.

We needed a "psychenaut" program to be the opposite of the astronaut program in order to explore the enormous domains and dimensions of inner space. We need inner space exploration. We need to have access to more capacities in order to be adequate stewards of this most incredible process of transformation in human history.

Sometimes my life has been Odyssean - landing on strange islands of consciousness and reality and meeting very curious monsters who turn out to be very great teachers. Sometimes my life has been a quest for a grail of knowledge and education. Like Parsifal, my life has been a quest to pierce the veil, stumbling along but eventually finding it.

What 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.