None of these adventitious mental states are the real you. You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm. - Sam Harris

You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

If my decision to have a second cup of coffee this morning was due to a random release of neurotransmitters, how could the indeterminacy of the initiating event count as the free exercise of my will? Chance occurrences are by definition ones for which I can claim no responsibility. And if certain of my behaviors are truly the result of chance, they should be surprising even to me. How would neurological ambushes of this kind make me free?

If one didn’t know better, one would think that man, in his fear of losing all that he loves, had created heaven, along with its gatekeeper God, in his own image.

Despite how impressive many of my teachers were, they were undoubtedly human and susceptible to the same cultural biases and physical infirmities that define the lives of ordinary people.