Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) was an American ethnobotanist, lecturer, author, and advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring, plant-derived psychedelics. Known as “the Timothy Leary of the ‘90s,” he also taught and lectured on a variety of subjects beyond psychedelics, including philosophy, shamanism, metaphysics, technology, and the evolution of human consciousness, and he came up with several theories on the nature of time and humanity, including novelty theory, timewave theory, and the “stoned ape” theory.