No. I'm not talking about history, or adulthood, or just the broader sense of life experience. I'm talking about something much more/less significant. I'm talking about psychedelic drugs, more specifically, ACID.
It might help if you read this post whilst listening to this song:
I am listening to it while I write this post.
Let me preface this (in the middle) by saying that I do not advocate the irresponsible use of drugs. I don't. Drugs are a HUGE responsibility. NEVER take drugs for shits and giggles. NEVER.
I decided I wanted to try Acid after seeing a fantastic episode of Mad Men wherein Roger Sterling (my FAVORITE character) takes Acid with his soon to be estranged young wife along with a bunch of other wealthy adults during a time when the medical industry was testing the effects of LSD. I'd been toying with the idea for a while, and I was living close to some similarly toying friends that I considered and still consider to be my intellectual equals. We MADE PLANS that required us to wait a good few months before actually taking the drug. We talked to professional drug takers (or whatever you want to call them) who gave us excellent advice on how to spend the day without crashing into a pile of misery at the end of it (because that's what happens when you take drugs....you feel fantastic and then you crash into a pile of painful misery).
If the music has ended, you can always restart it. ;)
The day we had planned was upon us. It was in June in Atlanta, and the weather forecasters were calling for an incredibly hot day, over 100 in the shade. Everyone was advised to stay inside. But we didn't want to. We went to a park on a creek, brought water, juice, fruit and trail mix, and spread out.
From the time one "drops" acid, it takes about an hour or so to feel any of the effects. We were coming out of a hike through the dense woods when I started to "come up" as they say. I found a rock in the shade where I could soak my feet in the water of the creek and allowed the waves of my gradual loss of control to crash over me.
It mostly just felt like my breathing had slowed down along with my mind. I remember looking up and seeing my friend Matt, who had mentioned putting on some sunblock before anything happened, standing in the creek up to his knees, and confusedly rubbing thick, cakey circles of old sunblock around in his chest hair.
"There's something wrong with this lotion."
I just laughed.
I won't go into all the details. I will say that I found myself at one point, sitting on a rock in the middle of the creek, the current rushing over my shoulders as I tossed my head back and laughed at the sky. I laughed and laughed until I wept, and then I wept until I laughed again. I was experiencing the stereotypical Acid trip. I also spent a long time with one of these guys:
thinking, "this guy totally gets it." What? Oh, you know, the basic stuff: Life is fleeting. We're all plummeting towards death, and the more we fear it, the faster it comes. Thus, there's no good place for fear in our lives. There's a place for careful consideration, but life altering fear, NO.
The truth is, I didn't need to take acid to figure that out. I knew it. What's the one reason you aren't doing exactly what you want to do RIGHT NOW? And you can't say "money," because you know how to make money. The answer is fear. You might be afraid that you won't succeed, afraid that you will succeed, afraid you'll be alone forever, afraid you'll end up on the streets, crazy and homeless (that's not how you become homeless. look at homeless people. most of them need a good doctor and some kind of medication for mental disorders OR help with addiction [BE CAREFUL WITH DRUGS]).
Every reason that you might be able to give for not living the life you always imagined you could live can be traced back to FEAR.
I was a trusting kid. My parent's didn't have to scare me into submission too often (I don't think). When a lot of my friends were sneaking out because their parents were strict, I was hanging out at home with my parents watching Star Trek TNG or listening to music and writing in my angst-y teen journal. My parents weren't strict. I got to go out when I made plans, and I didn't go out when I didn't. I trusted their authority and guidance, some might say innocently, because they didn't try to scare me into obeying them. I didn't try to rush into adulthood. I let it come upon me organically. So, for that, I think they knocked it out of the park, even if they don't agree with me. I mean...I am writing a blog about dropping acid.
So do this: return to freaking innocence. Just laugh if you want. Cry if you want. And don't care what other people say. You're the only one that knows EXACTLY what you need. And if you aren't sure...FIGURE IT OUT, and then give it to yourself.
The only difference between figuring that out with or without acid is the pure moods style music in your head...and the visuals. CRAZY VISUALS.
OH. AND THIS:
