Whenever I feel bored or uninspired, I watch a Jason Silva video. I like to think of him as the Terence McKenna of the digital age.

He’s a hard guy to pin down, he’s a technofuturist, digital filmmaker and an insanely interesting spoken word philosopher. He has a remarkable ability to channel today’s brightest thinkers and reveal to us the awe and wonder of our human existence.

I have watched all of his videos many times. In each video, he weaves together disparate yet connected ideas like the Singularity, neuroscience, enlightenment, transcendence, the Internet and rapture into what he calls philosophical shots of espresso.

He is a master of combining brilliant quotes, fascinating visuals and mind-expanding ideas for maximum impact.

I have include some of my favourite Jason Silva videos along with the most inspiring quotes mentioned in each video.

1. The Hero’s Journey

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” – Joseph Campbell

Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. Why not try and live your own epic hero’s journey.

2. Find Your Creative Flow State

“The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.” – Steven Johnson

Jason Silva explains the headspace of flow, the place where dreams are born. Be a virtuoso of your imagination.

3. Exploring Space: Cosmic Revolutionaries

When we dream of space, we dream of transcendence. We dream of what we might become. – Marina Benjamin

We are the microcosm of the Universe. When we explore the cosmos, we awaken our minds.

4. Singularity: The Omega Point

“We are the frontal lobes of the Universe.” – Carl Sagan

We evolve through the technological tools we create. The approaching singularity is a metaphor to describe the indescribable nature of our creative universe accelerating in its capacity to be creative.

5. The Mirroring Mind

All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. – Bill Hicks

Apparently, you are the Universe experiencing itself. In your mirroring mind is the Universe.

6. Radical Openness

Our ability to create virtual models in our heads, combined with our modest-looking thumbs, was sufficient to usher in the secondary force of evolution called technology. And it will continue until the entire Universe is at our fingertips. – Ray Kurzweil

There has been more change in the last 100 years than the previous 1 billion. Radical openness is the engine of this evolution.

 7. To Understand Is To Perceive Patterns

“I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks.” – Paul Stamets

Technology is an expander of human consciousness. The global brain we call the Internet is accelerating our collective intelligence.

8. Awe

ATTENTION, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement” – Charles Darwin.

Rapture. Illumination. Awe and wonder. Radiant ecstasy. Jason Silva talks about the moments that shape and transform our existence.

9. The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck

Though philosophy has hardly registered it, the Hubble has given us nothing less than an ontological awakening, a forceful reckoning with what is. The telescope compels the mind to contemplate space and time on a scale just shy of the infinite. – Ross Anderson

Awe is evolutionary advantageous, it informs our life with a sense of cosmic significant and it motivates us.

10. Technium

“Our mission as humans is not only to discover our fullest selves in the technium, and to find full contentment, but to expand the possibilities for others. Greater technology will selfishly unleash our talents, but it will also unselfishly unleash others: our children, and all children to come.” – Kevin Kelly

Technologically mediated telepathy, mind-to-mind communication through our digital devices. Amazing.

Have Jason Silva’s philosophical shots of awe and wonder inspired you?