jcksn

Note: This is an article written a few months back.

I don’t drink… Often. Of course, socially, it’s, to me, a necessary evil. Every six months or so, I’ll have a drink. (Then again, I haven’t had a drink in over a year…) Usually, to remind myself how disgusting it is. That is just my personal opinion. Some love their ale or spirits.

But, stumbling from city to city, to country, to town, you meet lots of people. And conversations are spoken that startle you.

Recently a friend of a friend recited to me the details of his first encounter with heroin - he swore he never did it again. He said, “it’s not that it’s bad, but that it’s so good… just utterly indescribable. I mean, just man, it’s not even possible to put into words.”

Another friend of mine swears by Ambien, and takes it every night before bed.

And, I see a pattern in the acquisition and use of drugs as something to cure what we call, “The Human Condition.” Anxiety, panic-attacks, fear. Some of us call it life.

The more I grow up, the more I notice that in some facet or another, everyone is trying to tame their human condition. Chocolate, sweets, hugs, sex, heroin, pot, electronics, vitamins, healthy food, running. We all, subconsciously, or not, are in a perpetual state of altering our state of consciousness.

I take my daily dose of vitamins, heart medication, and 150 oz. of water for the day, to alleviate my symptoms of dysautonomia. I feel better doing it.

This is all related to the recent death of a 102 year old scientist and experienced psychedelic user, Dr. Albert Hoffman: the inventor of LSD. He used it continuously until his death, at the ripe old age of 102.

The thing that makes me laugh, is how such a safe substance was classified so terribly - yet I can go and purchase liver poisoning alcohol and lung cancer inducing cigarettes almost any moment of the day and at almost every corner.

I’ve got great respect for the man, not because I have done LSD, but because he believed in himself and spit into the wind that is society.

The troubling part about life, is that as you grow up, you realize that everyone seems to be running from a bad emotion to a good one, trying to manage their level of happiness. So why is it, that the “Human Condition” is such? Why is it so troubling for the world to “just be.”

I’ve always been curious why everyone is so dramatic about life and not truthful to themselves about how concrete yet wondrous and fragile the world is. Not to say I haven’t had my share of selfish indulgence, both good and bad - but I always have been curious why everyone alive today isn’t grateful for just being here.

And then I watched a movie about a grown man dating a blow-up doll. And in it I gained a really prolific yet utterly cliché piece of advice: growing up is about doing the right thing for everybody, no matter what.

Lars and the Real Girl was good, but the advice it gave was spot on. I’m getting married in 5 days and for once in my life I feel like I’m growing up.