Quote of the Week

Transcendence restores humor. Spirit restores humor. Suddenly, smiling returns. Too many representatives of too many movements – even many very good movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, meditation, spiritual studies – seem to lack humor altogether. In other words, they lack lightness, they lack a distance from themselves, a distance from the ego and its grim game of forcing others to conform to its contours. There is self-transcending humor, or there is the game of game of egoic power. No wonder Menken wrote that “Every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow citizens, usually by force; this messianic delusion is our national disease.” We have chosen egoic power and politically correct thought police; grim Victorian reformers pretending to be defending civil rights; messianic new paradigm thinkers who are going to save the planet and heal the world. They should all trade two pounds of ego for one ounce of laughter.

~ Ken Wilber (from One Taste: 12/7)