One Great Thing - Terrence McKenna

“...scattered through the ordinary world there are books and artifacts and perhaps people who are like doorways into impossible realms, of impossible and contradictory truth.”  

--Terrence McKenna

My favorite thing about the internet is that, for all its silliness and obscenity, it also seems to be a storehouse of the sum total of human knowledge and achievement.  It is a place where you can get up close and personal with the recorded thoughts and deeds of absolutely amazing people you might otherwise have never heard of.  

Here’s One Great Thing (a brilliant mind in this case) that you can learn all about with ease, simply for having been born when you were.   Congrats!  (Seriously.)

Many of you may already know all about Terrence McKenna.  He’s pretty famous.  But I didn’t.  Never heard of him until recently.  Through the miracle of the internet, I’ve been reading up on this strange and wonderfully insightful person who died in April of 2,000.

I am not an advocate of psychedelic drugs, nor am I a user of them, nor a detractor.   Then again, I could say the same thing about Skydiving.  I’m probably a little too cautious/scared for either of those things.   But, whatever path Terrence McKenna took to come to some of his ideas, it was certainly a fruitful one.  

Here’s a clip of Joe Rogan’s podcast (language warning!) where they discuss McKenna's “Stoned Ape” theory (from that book above) of how human intelligence evolved. 

He also said things like this - paraphrased in this article from the Scientific American website…  

"Modern science often depicts humanity as an accident, a bit player in the universe, but the timewave theory puts us at center stage in the cosmic drama, according to McKenna. If he had to define God, he would define it as this novelty-generating process. This definition could serve as the basis for a new moral order. “Anything which destroyed novelty would be bad, and anything which helped build it up and advance it would be good.”

What about Nazi Germany? I asked. Wasn’t that novel? Or the hydrogen bomb? Or AIDS? McKenna acknowledged that novelty may be accompanied by increased suffering and death, but in general progress of some kind emerges out of these catastrophes. In the case of Nazi Germany, “the twentieth century had to deal with the issue of fascism. It couldn’t close its eyes and waltz past that. And it did! So in that sense Nazi Germany, with its science-fiction production values and its silly rhetoric, served a useful purpose.” McKenna, deep down, was apparently an optimist.”

See?  

Here’s a lot more, the thing that got me interested to read up on this “whoa, who the hell is this guy?” guy.   It’s the last recorded interview with McKenna before his death.  At least it claims to be that, but it’s from the internet, so who really knows?  It’s also in the middle of the woods for some reason.  Which is strangely appropriate and awesome.  The video is over and hour long. and the most amazing part (cuz there is a LOT of “amazing” in here) is that he’s basically just talking.  Free-forming stunning thoughts in complex constructions of logic, insight, and what many may feel is total wackiness, like he’s ordering lunch for 500 co-workers at a drive-thru window.  Barely takes a breath.  Just goes and goes…

Definitely worth the time. 

Fear Nothing. We Have Work To Do.

The news has shown us all some disturbing stories this week.  I suppose they aren’t really “particularly” disturbing.  After all, there will be more next week.  Anyway, I’m not going to talk about those things here.  I’m going to ignore them in favor of reminding myself, and hopefully you, of something much more important. 

We have work to do.   

Look closely at his hands.  The gesture means “Fear not."

There will always be turmoil in the world.  Obviously.  And of course.  Yet everything is as it must be.  Chaos is a necessary condition for evolution.  And evolution is what we are all here for.  It may not always seem like it, but that’s a good thing too.  Fear not.  Everything is okay.

It’s a very old symbol,
carried down across many cultures for one reason.
Because it’s true.
Everything is Okay.
Fear not.

At the end of each day on planet earth, the net-positive quietly outweighs the net-negative, bombastic and intimidating as it may be.  Even if we can’t easily see it, even if it doesn’t make the news, everyday a man goes without food so that another may eat, a woman goes without rest so that a child may sleep, and entire communities volunteer for hardship so that others may reach higher potentials.  

Every day a great step is taken.  

How great?  Let’s take a step back for some perspective.  No, a little further… a little more… Okay that’s far enough.  Let’s look for a moment at the really big picture.

What we call history, all the way back to the Big Bang, is really the story of growth.  We exist within an ongoing process in which simple things grow into more complex things capable of more and more over time.  On this particular island in space, simple elements evolve into breathable air and sustaining water.  Simple cells evolve into plants and animals.  Autonomous animals evolve from creatures of instinct to creatures of reason.  All of that growth happened over billions of years.  

The next step?  Over the last hundred thousand years or so - a grain of sand on the beach of time - creatures of reason have begun to evolve into beings with the ability to recognize an aspect of themselves we generally refer to as spirit or “soul.”  

Evolution does not happen overnight.  Fungus does not suddenly become a tree.  Instinct does not suddenly become reason.  And humankind does not suddenly become whatever it is we are working our way towards in an instant.  Rather, steps taken in the direction of higher states come from acts of courage born out of necessity.  Some lowly worm had to climb high into the trees before the first butterfly could come.  A fish had to venture onto the land before anything walked.  And some human being had to trust in something about himself which he could not see or point to before he could do something no animal ever could – take a stand on principle.  

Animals do not rush into burning buildings or throw themselves onto live grenades that fall among their comrades.  Nor does every man.  But with each step taken, more and more will be able say I do not need to fear because death has no dominion over me.     

Courage is the key.  Where do human beings get their courage?  Faith.  Not the faith of dogma or religion (although such things can sometimes help).  Ultimately, any act of courage comes from an understanding, whether fully realized in a moment or something more subtle, that we are more than our current situation makes it seem.  

A baby bird can’t really know what’s going to happen the first time it jumps out of a nest high in tree.  But he suspects something about himself, a potential unrealized while he sits and waits.  

After that first act of faith, birds can fly at will.  

“Expansion” by Paige Bradley