DRUGZ
Aaron and I ate shrooms the other day. A step into death. A step back. I'm feeling right now that I didn't like the experience, or I don't like what lingers.
Of course, in the trip, I was incapable of making value judgments, and even experienced moments of contentment.
I am inclined at the moment strongly to reject the belief that psychedelics bring you into a truer or enveloping consciousness. They showed me something, an alternative, but it was one in which my self and many of the things and people I love didn't exist. Maybe there are better trips to be had, but, for example, the ecstasy I look for wasn't really present in the space I entered, or at least wasn't particularly accessible.
I won't compare what I experienced to death. I don't know whether or not it has any physiological resemblance. I gather there's actually a kind of heightening of something, an opening between two sides; but I'm aware of what I judge to be richer, more valuable openings. It's a drug, damn it. If its effects come to dominate the experience, as they surely did for me, it'll fuck you up.
So it's a death emptier than death. None of the ecstasy or fullness of religion, or of life.
UPDATE: It's said that these sorts of things can be a life-changing experience. For my part, the aftermath is precisely that, in a small way. My sane self, in reflection on the experience, is gripped with the need to affirm and do certain things, contrary to accepted wisdom, contrary to psychedelic wisdom. So it's giving me a surge of confidence in the rightness of what I'm grasping for. So it has paradoxically given me something.
I guess I'm just once again grappling gleefully with the fact that the cold, hard truths may happily be bullshit. I will eventually feel compelled to write some of my affirmative philosophy in a way that seems halfway sane.
To those of you who know me as a sane person, I apologize. We'll get back to our regular programming shortly.
Of course, in the trip, I was incapable of making value judgments, and even experienced moments of contentment.
I am inclined at the moment strongly to reject the belief that psychedelics bring you into a truer or enveloping consciousness. They showed me something, an alternative, but it was one in which my self and many of the things and people I love didn't exist. Maybe there are better trips to be had, but, for example, the ecstasy I look for wasn't really present in the space I entered, or at least wasn't particularly accessible.
I won't compare what I experienced to death. I don't know whether or not it has any physiological resemblance. I gather there's actually a kind of heightening of something, an opening between two sides; but I'm aware of what I judge to be richer, more valuable openings. It's a drug, damn it. If its effects come to dominate the experience, as they surely did for me, it'll fuck you up.
So it's a death emptier than death. None of the ecstasy or fullness of religion, or of life.
UPDATE: It's said that these sorts of things can be a life-changing experience. For my part, the aftermath is precisely that, in a small way. My sane self, in reflection on the experience, is gripped with the need to affirm and do certain things, contrary to accepted wisdom, contrary to psychedelic wisdom. So it's giving me a surge of confidence in the rightness of what I'm grasping for. So it has paradoxically given me something.
I guess I'm just once again grappling gleefully with the fact that the cold, hard truths may happily be bullshit. I will eventually feel compelled to write some of my affirmative philosophy in a way that seems halfway sane.
To those of you who know me as a sane person, I apologize. We'll get back to our regular programming shortly.
posted by Linguo @ 1:06 a.m.
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