[For information about the video, see the note at the bottom of this post.]
From whiskey river:
There is never anything more truthful
Than what you yourself make of it
Except the possibility that is always there
Behind you, at the back of the mirror,
Behind the brain, in back of the universe —
And that also as you will make it.
(Peyton Houston, from The Changes [source])
…and:
When you find yourself asking, irritably and rhetorically, “Why the hell does he keep doing that?!” — I strongly recommend you answer the rhetorical question. The causal story revealed in the answer, which always has roots outside the person, might reduce counter-productive blaming and contempt, and it will give you vital information about how the behavior might be changed.
(Thomas Clark, from Encountering Naturalism)
…and (italicized portion):
We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. “I came into this world.” “You must face reality.” “The conquest of nature.”
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not come into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated egos inside bags of skin.
(Alan Watts, from The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are)
