Let The Revolution Begin.

[mariecurie]

Growing up I was always a little irked by how seriously most people
take themselves. I mean I'm a just eighteen year old who is in the
process of experimenting with life. This is true regardless of whether
experimentation means lying in a pile of bodies and figuring out how my
body works or rubbing my mind up against some of the most troubling
philosophical ideas that man has ever thought about to see how it
handles them. One of the issues that I find humanity struggles with the
most is the issue of altered states of conciousness.



I've never known quite what to think of Leary's Eight Circuit Model of
the Human Conciousness because he spent so much of his life under the
influence of LSD that I think only he would be able to effectively
describe to me exactly what he meant. His model has served an
inspiration to me, however, and it has shown me some unique insights
into the psyche of people who use drugs.



I've come to believe that just as people go jump out of airplanes or
climb mountains to feel the rush of being alive, people experiment with
substances because through the transcendence of everyday life they are
brought face to face with what it means to be alive. Each substance
offers a different boundary of life that people play around with and
hopefully never permanently cross.



My point will be most clearly elucidated with an example. Heroin users,
in my opinion, are playing around with the boundary between life and
death. They are choosing a hedonistic hobby that bears the danger of
the fatal overdose. While alcohol and many other drugs can also kill
you, with no drug can the death come so immediately as with heroin. For
this reason, heroin users are actually the most mature about the
boundary they have chosen to play with because it's very clear what
they're doing. People who smoke cigarettes, for example, are
threatening to give themselves cancer, but the cancer always seems so
far off. I mean it's a fact that cigarettes are not good for you, but
no one falls lifelessly to the ground after smoking a cigarette for the
first time. Cigarette addiction is one of the least mature habits in
the world.



LSD users are playing around with the boundary between sanity and
insanity. I'm generally a very sane person, but I know that sometimes
when I go on a high dose LSD adventure there are hours when I'm
convinced that I'm perpetually losing my mind. To no longer be able to
distinguish or identify reality, to stick your toes into the pond of
schizophrenia...it's an adventure like no other. I see a lot more that
is worthwhile in LSD use than in the use of many other drugs, but this
is just a personal preference. I think insanity is sort of intriguing
as a day trip and so I go visit once in a while.



Alcohol is the tool through which people get to play with being
completely unintelligent. You return in essence to your animal
instincts and you have no inhibitions or control for the most part. I
don't understand why this would be the goal of a Friday night, but then
again I know many people who think LSD rots your brain. Maybe I just
don't understand.



Regardless, my point is that life is all about these transparent
boundaries that we spend all of our life and never get near. To walk
face to face with insanity or death is one of the most troubling and
awakening experiences you are capable of having. Don't let a government
tell you what you should or should not do to your body, but please
choose to do things responsibly. Just because you want to toy with
death, doesn't mean you should take a bag of heroin and inject it into
your arm. Analyze risks thoroughly because it is the analytical mind
that sets mankind apart from the creatures who have come before us.



Let the revolution begin.

[Creeping Death]

I don't think that there is sutch a thing as "reality". There are only different states of conciousness.

The defenition of reality is something that doesn't go away just because you stop beliving in it. If you do a bunch of acid and stop beliving that youre kitchen sink is leaking, then that's a fact in your own mind. And the perceptions of our own minds are all there is. You can change it at will with different substences, so there cant really be anything that's "real".

The point of life is to live it the way you want and learn about yourself. Laws and rules are only a way for some people to control other people.

[42itis]

Mariecurie, a thoughtful post that I had responded to before, unfortunately it wouldnt post and I have forgotten it, Good post!