Wednesday, August 10, 2016

"Drugs are bad, m'kay?" (Cheech and Chong)

Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; South Park; Cheech&Chong
(SM) A disquieting scene from the American Cheech and Chong comedy movie "Up in Smoke"

If one had to take a drug, and no one does, an entheogen would be far better than "dope." Getting "stoned," "hammered," "smashed," "twisted," "bent," and such sounds like a pleasant diversion, an alteration of consciousness.

But "getting high" is far from getting stoned (weighed down). The goal of temporarily obliterating consciousness, while sounding dreamy as a respite from our suffering, misery, and pain is the opposite of an answer. How about escaping to reality?

This what we assume about what we think we see around us is unreal. Let's look for the real. We can begin looking for it here and now. It's not hidden in a cave or meditation hall, which might provide more conducive spaces for looking, it's true, but are not themselves the place we go in mind/heart anymore than the launch pad is space or the diving board water.

If "getting high" means "distorting perception or reality," it would be better to run from that, but run toward what? Imagine a drug like "limitless," one that made more of "the mind" available, that opened the pineal gland, unified the brain and gut and heart into a coherent firing of neurons, which are found in all three organs.

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