Mark Trujillo

“I cannot pretend that I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return . . . Above all, I have been a sentient being on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
― Rupert Sheldrake, Science and Spiritual Practices: Transformative Experiences and Their Effects on Our Bodies, Brains, and Health

“The downside is that by recognizing our total dependence on powers beyond ourselves, we can be filled with an overwhelming sense of religious obligation and guilt at not fulfilling it. One way out of this sense of inadequacy is to become an atheist. If everything happens automatically and unconsciously, if there is no purpose or providence in the world, then there is nothing to feel grateful for. But this liberation comes at a high price. Being ungrateful is often accompanied by unhappiness.”
― Rupert Sheldrake, Science and Spiritual Practices: Transformative Experiences and Their Effects on Our Bodies, Brains, and Health

“It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream-alone...”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau