I hoped for something else. It's a simple dream, but it speaks to us so powerfully because it is our dream - one that exists at the very center of the American experience. One that says if you're willing to work hard and take responsibility, then you'll have the chance to reach for something else; for something better.
[...] we must start by inspiring our children with a sense of purpose...by nurturing their imagination so that they may dream big and then work hard to reach those dreams. Too often, our children spend hours playing Playstation without ever finding out how to build Playstation. They watch television but never wonder how it's put together. They surf web page after web page on the Internet, but are never taught how to design one.
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever.
This one question-'What do I know for certain?'-is tremendously powerful. When you look deeply into this question, it actually destroys your world. It destroys your whole sense of self, and it's meant to. You come to see that everything you think you know about yourself, everything you think you know about the world, is based on assumptions, beliefs, and opinions-things that you believe because you were taught or told they were true. Until we start to see these false perceptions for what they really are, consciousness will be imprisoned within the dream state.
But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.
Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.