The picture above is of Terence McKenna. That's his quote, too.
Until this picture and quotation showed up on my Facebook page, driven there by the unknowable algorithms that determine what and whom we see when we scroll through the Facebook postings sent our way, I had never heard of Terence McKenna. At least, I don't remember having heard of him.
The Wikipedia write up on McKenna, linked above, is quite lengthy, and indicates that McKenna accomplished a great deal in a relatively brief life. It appears that McKenna died young, from an aggressive brain cancer. In its obituary, The New York Times called McKenna a "Patron of Psychedelic Drugs." These drugs were, it appears, the major focus of his life.
I am writing, today, to react to the sentiment that McKenna has expressed in the Facebook posting I have pictured. And as I say in my title, "pardon my impatience."
If things are as McKenna says they are (and McKenna is right, and all those possibilities he lists are real), then the right reaction is not to bemoan the fact that other persons have not demonstrated effective leadership, to help us realize the possibilities that we actually have. Not realizing our possibilities is no one's fault but our own.
I have cited to Michael Jackson before. We should be looking at that person in the mirror, not hoping that someone else is going to be stepping up to provide the kind of leadership we need.
Furthermore, if we believe in "self-government," that means that we have to take responsibility, ourselves, for doing what needs to be done. I have made this point before - and most recently on our last Fourth of July, citing to what President Biden has pointed out. When something needs to be done, to prevent a bad result, or to achieve a good one, we, individually and collectively, are the ones who have to step up.
As our president said:
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