The main thing to understand is that we are imprisoned in some kind of work of art.
Interpretation
Our lives can be seen as intricate artworks shaped by our experiences and perceptions.
Terence McKenna's quote suggests that our existence is not merely a series of events or actions, but rather a complex work of art. This perspective encourages us to recognize the beauty and intricacy of our lives, highlighting how our experiences, choices, and interactions contribute to the masterpiece of our existence.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, you might say, 'As Terence McKenna once said, we are imprisoned in some kind of work of art, reminding us that our lives are defined by the creativity and choices we make.'
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.
Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.
Well, what's interesting, I try not to think about the radio when I'm writing a song. I want people to love the song, and that means it might not be exactly thinking about the radio, but it's thinking about your audience and saying, 'I want people to like this song after it's done.'
Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.
So, for instance, if you came to me, I'd ask, 'Do you want to write? Do you want to improvise? Why do you want to play this instrument? What do you want to do?'
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