"If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up exactly where we are headed." - Old proverb

"This revolution has to begin, not with theory and ideation, which eventually prove worthless, but with a radical transformation in the mind itself." - J. Krishnamurti

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Max Planck

"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude." - William James

"If we maintain obsolete values and beliefs, a fragmented consciousness, and a self-centered spirit, we also maintain outdated goals and behaviors. We need to empower the evolution of consciousness." - Ervin Laszlo

"The realization that nature is ordered organically rather than politically, that it is a field of relationships rather than a collection of things, requires an appropriate mode of human awareness. Fully expanded, consciousnesses feels an identity with the whole world, but contracted it is much more inescapably attached to a single minute and perishable organism. Our difficulty is that human consciousness has not adjusted itself to a relational and integrated view of nature." - Alan Watts

"A radical inner transformation and rise to new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm." - Stanislov Grof

"A paradigm shift implies a change in the way we think about life that results in a change of behavior." - Penny Peirce

"In order to change an existing paradigm, you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete." - R. Buckminster Fuller


We face crises of health, climate change, water and air quality, poisonous diets, social fracturing, and individualistic greed (among a laundry list of others) - yet our entire government (and the debate at large) has ground to a halt for the past few months because we couldn't agree on the exact way to add a few numbers after a dollar sign. Where the fuck are our priorities? Somewhere along the line (probably even further back than the creation of this country) we deemed financial wealth greater than human wealth, and its turned us all into a bunch of goddamned lunatics - lunatics who believe themselves to be in constant competition with one another over accolades and colorful paper. It's a mentality that breeds isolation, anxiety, resentment, hate, and violence. Further, it allows for certain folks to justify abominable treatment of the poor, and turn a blind eye to the starving (not to mention the exploitation of the environment).

If any significant change is ever gonna come - in the economy, socially, or otherwise - it won't be the result of any "grand bargain." It needs to come first with an enormous shift in the way we view ourselves, each other, and the world at large. Less of this "win the future," every-man-for-himself, cutthroat, cowboy bullshit, and more recognition of connection, compassion, and cooperation (on a global scale). We need to recognize and accept that differentiation is not separation - because a society which has defined one as separate cannot then persuade that person to believe as if they really belonged. And that also goes double for this phony idea of separation from the natural environment we inhabit - because its that feeling of separation that leads to its violent subjugation and, ultimately, its (and our) eventual destruction.

If you made it this far, you're an adventurous soul and I'll spare you anymore of my drivel. But I will say this, as the dust settles on this kabuki dance of "the Great Debt Bargain" (did anyone actually think they wouldn't "reach a compromise" at the last nail-biting second?), I can't help but feel nothing has truly been "fixed," or "improved," or "changed" - only that I'm reminded of one more of my favorite quotes from the aforementioned Alan Watts:

"Nothing ever got nowhere with so much fascinating ado."

“If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.”