What we’re thinking about is a peaceful planet. We’re not thinking about anything else. We’re not thinking about any kind of power. We’re not thinking about any kind of struggles. We’re not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That’s not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.
If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously.
We’re involved in a society which is undergoing some really weird changes now.
I Don’t Think There’s A Good Excuse For Being Unhappy. I’m Not Particularly Unhappy, But I Know What Pain Is. I think That Life Is Characterized By Pain, Partly. Part Of The Way You Can Tell You’re Alive Is By How Much Pain You’re Experiencing, Or How Little…
To me, that’s the key thing, the pursuit of happiness. That’s the basic, ultimate freedom.
Music goes way back before language does. And music is like the key to a whole spiritual existence which this society doesn’t even talk about. We know it’s there. The Grateful Dead plays at religious services essentially. We play at the religious services of the new age. Everybody gets high, and that’s what it’s all about really. Getting high is a lot more real than listening to a politician. You can think that getting high actually did happen – that you danced, and got sweaty, and carried on. It really did happen. I know when it happens. I know it when it happens every time.
Truth is something you stumble into when you think you’re going someplace else.
You need music, I don’t know why. It’s probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.
Live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future!
To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.
What is life but being conscious? And good and evil are manifestations of consciousness. If you reject one, you’re not getting the whole thing that’s there to be had.
Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it’s been.