Explorations in Deliberate Living

Articles, reflections, and resources for living fully, traveling light, and expanding your experience beyond the bounds of consumer culture — from a fellow traveler on the path.

17 Ideas

17 Ideas That Changed My Life - Coffee Table Edition

Grab a copy or enter your email below to download my new philosophical coffee table book, 17 Ideas That Changed My Life:

About

Ethan Maurice is an everyday explorer, philosopher, and mystic translating written wisdom, wide travels, and lived experience into better ways of life than consumer culture currently offers.

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All-Time Favorites:

The Shamanic Dance In the Waterfall

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Why Wander? A 4 Min Video on Why I Venture Out

Watch It
"How Did I Get Here?" Moments

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What is a Mystic (And How to Be One)?

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Bookshelf: A Floating Shelf of My Favorite Books

Find Great Books
Cosmic Consciousness Speech @ Festival of Yes

Listen In
Why You Should Stop Watching So Much TV and Be More Like Bruce Dickinson

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Three Summers in Silver Gate, MT

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My Mind-Blowing Inner Experience of a 10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course

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The Commonplace Book

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Quotes from the Bookshelf:

"I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
"We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world."

— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
"It’s the job of dice therapy, like the job of revolution in the world as a whole, to enlarge free territory."

— Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
We are more struggling to survive than to thrive, more just “getting through” or trying to get to the top than finding out what is really at the top or was already at the bottom.

— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
"People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy."

— Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek
"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah."

— Richard Bach, Illusions
"And it is true that everywhere dangers and difficulties are exaggerated by the local people, if only as a good excuse for extortion or malingering: one must go oneself to know the truth."

— Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard
"In the 21st century, religion isn’t the opium of the masses — being entertained without being engaged and challenged is."

— Caveat Magister, Turn Your Life Into Art
"Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there?"

— Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Explorations in Deliberate Living

17 Ideas

17 Ideas

About

The Shamanic Dance In the Waterfall

Why Wander? A 4 Min Video on Why I Venture Out

"How Did I Get Here?" Moments

What is a Mystic (And How to Be One)?

Bookshelf: A Floating Shelf of My Favorite Books

Cosmic Consciousness Speech @ Festival of Yes

Why You Should Stop Watching So Much TV and Be More Like Bruce Dickinson

Three Summers in Silver Gate, MT

My Mind-Blowing Inner Experience of a 10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course

The Commonplace Book

"I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

"We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world."

"It’s the job of dice therapy, like the job of revolution in the world as a whole, to enlarge free territory."

We are more struggling to survive than to thrive, more just “getting through” or trying to get to the top than finding out what is really at the top or was already at the bottom.

"People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy."

"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah."

"And it is true that everywhere dangers and difficulties are exaggerated by the local people, if only as a good excuse for extortion or malingering: one must go oneself to know the truth."

"In the 21st century, religion isn’t the opium of the masses — being entertained without being engaged and challenged is."

"Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there?"

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