Waking Life

"The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything."

"On this bridge, Lorca warns: Life is not a dream. Beware, and beware, and beware. And so many think because then happened, now isnt. But didnt I mention? The ongoing WOW is happening, right now! We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance, where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel starring clowns! This entire thing were involved with, called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be. Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments flabbergasted to be in each others presence. The world is an exam, to see if we can rise into the direct experiences. Our eyesight is here as a test, to see if we can see beyond it, matter is here as a test for our curiosity, doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write a hundred stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized at last, something was happening to him. An assumption developed that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely, which is to say, I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But, the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me, and on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, dont forget, which is to say remember, because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the Iguana will bite those who do not dream, and as one realizes that one is a dream-figure in another persons dream - That is self-awareness!"

"Richard Linklater - Pinball Playing Man"

"A thousand years is but an instant. Theres nothing new, nothing different; same pattern over and over. The same clouds, same music, the same things I felt an hour or an eternity ago. Theres nothing here for me now, nothing at all. Now I remember, this happened to me before. This is why I left. You have begun to find your answers. Although it will seem difficult the rewards will be great. Exercise your human mind as fully as possible knowing that it is only an exercise. Build beautiful artifacts, solve problems, explore the secrets of the physical universe, savor the input from all the senses, filled with joy and sorrow and laughter, empathy, compassion, and tote the emotional memory in your travel bag. I remember where I came from, and how I became human, why I hung around, and now my final departures scheduled. This way out, escaping velocity. Not just eternity, but Infinity."

"The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity, is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century. Im afraid were losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if its a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said, he never really felt a day of despair in his life. But one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance, a feeling on top of it. Its like your life is yours to create. Ive read the post-modernists with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction, or as a confluence of forces, or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, hes not talking about something abstract. Hes not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. Its something very concrete. Its you and me talking, making decisions, doing things, and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in the world, and counting. Nevertheless - what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. It makes a difference to other people, and it sets an example. And in short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. Its always our decision who we are."

"Man wants chaos. In fact, hes got to have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder. All this dread. Were irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. Its in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies; but we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world, no! Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers. Hey, you got a match? And they havent given us any other options outside the occasional, purely symbolic, participatory act of voting. "You want the puppet on the right, or the puppet on the left?" I feel the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfaction into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes. Let my own lack of a voice be heard. [douses himself in gasoline and sets himself on fire]"

"Robert C. Solomon - Philosophy Professor"

"Alex Jones - Man in Car with P.A."

"J.C. Shakespeare - Burning Man"

"Eamonn Healy - Shape-Shifting Man"

"Anchors aweigh! So what do you think of my little vessel? Shes what we call a see-worthy. S-E-E, see with your eyes. I feel like my transport should be an extension of my personality. Voila. And this, this is like my little window to the world, and every minutes a different show. Now I may not understand it. I may not even necessarily agree with it. But Ill tell you what, I accept it and just sort of glide along. You want to keep things on an even keel, I guess is what Im saying. You want to go with the flow. The sea refuses no river. The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. It saves on introductions and goodbyes. The ride does not require an explanation - just occupants. Thats where you guys come in. Its like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now you may get the eight-pack, you may get the sixteen-pack, but its all in what you do with the crayons, the colors, that youre given. And dont worry about drawing within the lines or coloring outside the lines. I say color outside the lines, you know what I mean? Color right off the page. Dont box me in! Were in motion to the ocean. We are not land-locked, Ill tell you that. So where do you want out?"

"There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I’ve always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved."