Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It's the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.
Interpretation
Beauty is a personal and subjective experience that goes deeper than mere appearance.
In this quote, Terence McKenna emphasizes that beauty is not a fixed or universal standard, but rather a personal perception and understanding that varies from one individual to another. He suggests that true beauty is found beneath the surface of our physical existence, highlighting the deeply personal and multifaceted nature of beauty as it relates to our individual experiences and identities.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about art and personal interpretation during a gallery opening.
We want freedom. We want freedom from the constraints of the cycles of the sun and the moon. We want freedom from drought and weather, freedom from the movement of game, the growth of plants, freedom from control from mendacious popes and kings, freedom from ideology, freedom from want. This idea of freeing ourselves has become the compass of the human journey.
LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.
A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls through your life.
Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced.
If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.
It is no coincidence that a rebirth of psychedelic use is occuring as we acquire the technological capability to leave the planet. The mushroom visions and the transformation of the human image precipitated by space exploration are spun together. Nothing less is happening than the emergence of a new human order. A telepathic, humane, universalist kind of human culture is emerging that will make everything that preceded it appear like the stone age.
There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.
No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.
The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
The movement is everything, the final goal is nothing.
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