|
 
Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! Please  login or  register to post messages and view our members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, encrypted messages, file attachments, board customizations, and much more!
|
 OneMoreRobot3021
punky jewster
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 55,475
Loc: new york shitty
Last seen: 8 hours, 14 minutes
|
 A letter I just wrote to my sister...
#7641500 - 11/15/07 07:39 PM (9 months, 17 days ago) |
|
|
So I recently had a piece I wrote published in a publication I really revere, and it means a lot to me. It's just a 500-word essay, sandwiched amongst many others. But seeing my name there, and my words, all about why I take psychedelic drugs, means a lot to me.
I passed it along to loved ones and friends (except my mom...that's a can of worms for another day) and I got this response from my sister:
Quote:
Hi! Congrats again on them publishing your piece. Of course, I think it's beautifully, honestly, and vividly written. But you know how I feel about the content of it. And the key issue for me isn't even that these things are harmful to you (though that's important to me, too), but that you could actually replace "psychedelics" with "God" or "religion" or "the church" in any of those sentences. I know this stuff is important to you, but I know you probably also want my honest opinion and wouldn't want me to just write back some placating, superficial thing, but to actually respond. So, honestly, when it comes to any kind of external thing like that, it comes across like a crutch at best and a cult at worst. (Sorry if that was a little too blunt.) So when you say they are a tool for you, my question then becomes how are they different than any other tool? What is really the goal? And is a tool really necessary to achieve it?
My sister, I have two, but this one has always been very negative about my use of psychedelics. Over the last 3 days I've scribbled a letter to her in my journal and I just cobbled it all together. In a way it's a dress rehearsal, as is everything I write, a dress rehearsal for my staunch defense of the use of psychedelics safely and responsibly. I am trying, so hard, to defend but not attack. i want this person, this human being who is so close to me and means so much to me, to understand why i do what I do.
Anyway, here's what I wrote to her:
Nika,
I AM really appreciative of your honesty and one thing I love about you is that I know I can expect that from you. I hope you don’t ever feel that you have to bite your tongue with me.
Our parents raised us to be atheists. I don’t know if you’ve really spent time thinking about that but it’s true from where I stand. I can even remember a time leaving Garden after school with Mommy. I asked her about “God” and she told me that “we don’t believe in him.” Atheism and agnosticism don’t have the dogma and rituals that other religions do but they are still systems of belief – the active belief in a lack of something to believe in, insofar as something greater than we human beings is concerned. And being raised as an atheist doesn’t really fall too far from being raised a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim. You’re being indoctrinated with a way of thinking and of seeing the world. And just like someone raised in any other faith, an atheist develops a cynicism towards other faiths.
I was a fervent atheist. A card-carrying member of “American Atheists,” to whom I sent money, you know. Nietzsche’s biggest advocate at school. I wrote so much about it. About what? Nothing. My active belief in nothing. I called it non-belief but I see now that’s just belief of another color.
I’ve always been looking for meaning. But, I took mushrooms for the first time out of nothing but a desire to see things undulate, to watch the walls breathe. Instead I found myself undertaking an unexpected introspective journey through the contours of my mind. I searched myself, and found connection points to the rest of the world to all of humanity I found symbols rich with meaning and an intricate, self-weaving, evolving pattern that revealed to me the vast intelligence that I now believe lies behind the universe’s physical, impenetrable, seemingly cold and unconcerned face. I used to hate the world, and now I love it.
I’m not saying there’s a mind pulling strings and controlling our fates. But I am saying that life itself is alive and intelligent. The universe is a mind, and we’re nothing but synapses on the surface of that brain. We are part of that mind, not separate from it. Tim Leary used to tell people “you are God.” Easy to misconstrue that message but it’s spot-on in my view when you read it the right way.
As for the harm these psychedelics might do me, I’m quite aware that we know very little about the human brain and that I am, in a way, making of myself a psychedelic guinea pig. That’s fine by me. I have one life to live and one mind to experience life with before I reconnect to the ubermind, and while I am careful not to be careless with it; I won’t let fear guide the decisions I make. I look up to and communicate with the people older than myself who are veteran psychonauts and still ingesting psychedelics while remaining fully functioning, emotionally intact, tax-paying, decent and productive members of society. There are thousands of them. I aim to be, like them, and example of safe and responsible drug use.
The word is too loaded. Drugs. Ooh, drugs. Drugs. Bad. Right? If the issue were really that black and white, would it be such a complicated matter to deal with and discuss?
You ask if psychedelics serve as a crutch for me. I ask you if there is anyone who doesn’t have a crutch? Anyone who truly walks alone? No…because, really, we can’t. In a way that’s the message that mushrooms convey – you aren’t alone, and you can’t do this alone. Connection is all-important.
In my experiences and my opinion, psychedelics in a 21st century context redefine the whole notion of religion and deeply personalize and internalize it. While indigenous tribes have for thousands of years ingested psychedelic sacraments in an organized religious context, we can’t, in our age, hope to adopt their religions with psychedelics as our sacraments. Their religions are based on geographically and socially and temporally specific cultural values that don’t completely translate to our current situation.
Psychedelics for the 21st century human being can be a sort of way of rediscovering religion in the spectrum of one’s own life and personality. They say, “here. Here is the constantly fluctuating, eternally transient nature of the universe. Here are a million disparate elements of existence all coexisting and commonly but unconsciously connected. Find your place.”
Part of you is probably thinking, “Fine. But why keep taking them?” You might even think that I’m addicted, even though physiologically no member of the psychedelic class of drugs is addictive. I keep taking them because everything is changing, myself included. For me, a psychedelic experience is like defragmenting my mental hard drive. My brain is so inundated, especially in NYC 2K7, bombarded with information and data and meaningless symbols endlessly paraded in the form of advertising. My experiences filter out the dross and allow me to access a quietness of mind that I can take back with me into the everyday routines of my life. The idealism and the sense of peace that I express and feel at the peaks of my doses, carrying those back with me is my eternal struggle and desire. And it is important work.
There’s one vision I’ve seen that sticks with me. I won’t describe it visually but tell you what it taught me. That the ideal state of being, that we could all strive to attain, is prismatic. Clear and open to external stimuli, taking it all in, and each of us is a uniquely formed prism who must then radiate outwards what we’ve made of what we’ve taken in. Psychedelics help me remain prismatic. And then, there’s pleasure.
I won’t deny there’s an element of pleasure in each of my experiences that I seek and am excited by. Should I be guilty of that? I don’t think so. Our lives are largely pleasureless. We fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way, and give a bulk of our energy to external forces that demand it of us. But to think that we could ingest a chemical and experience ecstatic bliss, is that so wrong?
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that tripping is all play and no work. In the end, and after the fact, they are all joyous experiences. But in the thick of it, they can be extensively, extremely difficult. It can be harrowing and hard to close one’s eyes and see oneself reflected there, the soul with all its dimples and imperfections nude and honest. Some of the hardest moments of my life have taken place entirely inside my mind.
I know this doesn't wrap anything up definitively. I know that no matter how much I try to explain my passion for the psychedelic experience to you there will probably always be a part of you that remains concerned and skeptical. But I just hope that, above all things, we can always keep this dialogue open. I appreciate the opportunity to spell out my reasons for doing what I do to you. Because it helps me remember them myself.
Love,
-my real name, yo-
--------------------
The Drug Policy Alliance  Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"The psychedelic experience - it has a tremendous force to revivify the spirit, particularly because it is not an ideology. It is not something someone 'figured out.' It is an EXPERIENCE. And this is important to bear in mind." - McKenna.
"We're not mad, we're just doing what we want. You rigid thinkers can't recognize the healthy sanity of that." - Harlan Ellison, "Crackpots"
|
eeso
Str@nger
Registered: 03/25/07
Posts: 110
Last seen: 6 days, 2 hours
|
|
Lucid and heartfelt.
|
Lion
Balance
Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 3,211
Loc: Kali Yuga
Last seen: 5 days, 18 hours
|
|
--------------------
"You can't make something original? Don't worry about it. Make a cup of clay so your brother can drink." ~Rumi
"My child, because you think you are the body, for a long time you have been bound. Know you are pure awareness. With this knowledge as your sword, cut through your chains and be happy!" ~Ashtavakra Gita
"May all beings realize the ecstatic transparency of their own minds." ~Lao Tzu
|
 dr_gonz
HEMP FOR VICTORY
Registered: 08/18/03
Posts: 23,613
|
Re: A letter I just wrote to my sister... [Re: Lion]
#7641645 - 11/15/07 08:12 PM (9 months, 17 days ago) |
|
|
that was very well written, OMAR. 
I need to come up and visit 
--------------------
HEMP FOR VICTORY - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne9UF-pFhJY
"Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?" - Bill Hicks
|
GGreatOne234
Registered: 12/23/99
Posts: 8,670
|
|
Sounds to me like you could write a 200 page email to her and still not convince her your choices are worthwhile decisions. She sounds too caught up in religious studies that forbid the use of drugs. Probably the only way she would ever understand is by dosing herself, and it doesnt sound like that would ever happen. But nice write-up once again.
|
paulie_walnuts1
NOT raconteur
Registered: 05/12/05
Posts: 395
|
|
Slip her a mickey.
--------------------
|
Cameron
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 1,970
Loc: Canada
|
Re: A letter I just wrote to my sister... [Re: paulie_walnuts1]
#7642977 - 11/16/07 04:36 AM (9 months, 17 days ago) |
|
|
I'm impressed. Do you have a link to that essay you had published?
|
demius
heeeeeeehaaaaaw!
Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 21,669
Loc: Earth
|
|
my poetry teacher said something interesting one day. "When someone uses to word 'honesty' or 'truthfully', etc. they usually are not being honest or truthful.
Quote:
So, honestly, when it comes to any kind of external thing like that, it comes across like a crutch at best and a cult at worst. (Sorry if that was a little too blunt.) So when you say they are a tool for you, my question then becomes how are they different than any other tool? What is really the goal? And is a tool really necessary to achieve it?
just something to think about.
Also, regarding the last few lines here, make sure mention or ask her about the church being a tool to reach her god, or the bible being a tool to reach her god, because after all, a map is still a tool.
(I didn't read your response to her)
|
badchad
Stranger
Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 2,490
|
Re: A letter I just wrote to my sister... [Re: demius]
#7643089 - 11/16/07 06:28 AM (9 months, 17 days ago) |
|
|
The first time I published something I felt the same way  .
nice letter.
|
Lion
Balance
Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 3,211
Loc: Kali Yuga
Last seen: 5 days, 18 hours
|
Re: A letter I just wrote to my sister... [Re: demius]
#7643164 - 11/16/07 07:30 AM (9 months, 17 days ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Also, regarding the last few lines here, make sure mention or ask her about the church being a tool to reach her god, or the bible being a tool to reach her god, because after all, a map is still a tool.
I think she is an atheist, and her point in comparing entheogens to church and god is that they're all crutches.
--------------------
"You can't make something original? Don't worry about it. Make a cup of clay so your brother can drink." ~Rumi
"My child, because you think you are the body, for a long time you have been bound. Know you are pure awareness. With this knowledge as your sword, cut through your chains and be happy!" ~Ashtavakra Gita
"May all beings realize the ecstatic transparency of their own minds." ~Lao Tzu
|
OneMoreRobot3021
punky jewster
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 55,475
Loc: new york shitty
Last seen: 8 hours, 14 minutes
|
Re: A letter I just wrote to my sister... [Re: Lion]
#7643494 - 11/16/07 09:50 AM (9 months, 16 days ago) |
|
|
Quote:
bug said:
Quote:
Also, regarding the last few lines here, make sure mention or ask her about the church being a tool to reach her god, or the bible being a tool to reach her god, because after all, a map is still a tool.
I think she is an atheist, and her point in comparing entheogens to church and god is that they're all crutches.
Yes, any notion of "spirituality" makes her extremely uncomfortable. She's really inherited my mother's distaste for any religious/spiritual sensibility whatsoever.
--------------------
The Drug Policy Alliance Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"The psychedelic experience - it has a tremendous force to revivify the spirit, particularly because it is not an ideology. It is not something someone 'figured out.' It is an EXPERIENCE. And this is important to bear in mind." - McKenna.
"We're not mad, we're just doing what we want. You rigid thinkers can't recognize the healthy sanity of that." - Harlan Ellison, "Crackpots"
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here
Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 12,761
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Ca...
Last seen: 55 minutes, 15 seconds
|
|
You said your piece. I don't know what else you can do. No matter how eloquent or explicit your words are, it is not always possible to get people to understand. Her mind appears to be made up; reason makes no difference when one's mind is closed. C'est la vie.
I remember you making a post a few months ago about "coming out of the psychedelic closet." Admirable, to be sure. Honesty is a virtue. I have not done the same thing. As open-minded as my family is, and as thoughtful as they know me to be, I doubt they would interpret my use of psychedelic drugs as anything but troublesome. Though the response I would get would certainly be an ignorant one, I want to spare them the worry that might result from their stereotype-based opinions of these substances. Admittedly, I want to spare myself the effort of explaining my actions (which to my mind are quite personal anyway.)
Good on you for being upfront; you're making it easier for others to do the same.
--------------------
-oOo-
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. -- `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
-oOo-
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 20,972
Loc: underbelly
|
|
That's an awesome letter. You stated my beliefs about the use of shrooms etc. pretty damn well.
I think although your parents had their programs/beliefs that they passed on to you, from the sound of you and your sister, they certainly did something right.
--------------------
What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. R.A.W.
I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. R.A.W.
|
Organic
Lloyd
Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 5,767
Loc: Overlook
Last seen: 3 months, 4 days
|
|
Well Done. Very well written.
--------------------
|
jonnywax
of the vomitsquad
Registered: 02/04/04
Posts: 6,904
|
|
That was a very well-written letter, omar. I wanted to quote one part:
Quote:
There’s one vision I’ve seen that sticks with me. I won’t describe it visually but tell you what it taught me. That the ideal state of being, that we could all strive to attain, is prismatic. Clear and open to external stimuli, taking it all in, and each of us is a uniquely formed prism who must then radiate outwards what we’ve made of what we’ve taken in. Psychedelics help me remain prismatic. And then, there’s pleasure.
That's a very vivid way of painting the picture that psychedelics teach so many of us. You're like our own NYC jewy sage. 
--------------------
skunk78395 said:
The inernet has been around for years, go google it.
|
Justice_Fish
Toothpaste Addict
Registered: 01/06/07
Posts: 1,694
Loc: Québec
Last seen: 20 minutes, 19 seconds
|
Re: A letter I just wrote to my sister... [Re: jonnywax]
#7649206 - 11/17/07 09:48 PM (9 months, 15 days ago) |
|
|
You shaved your mind/heart. Didn't you?
--------------------
|
elbisivni
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 2,065
|
|
I enjoyed reading that, I'd like to read her reply.. Like someone said above, her mind is probably made up - but so is yours - you may have to eventually settle for that.
I wrote a 20 page letter to the one person I've ever truly loved, coming out of the psychedelic closet. She accepted it without anything to ask and nothing really to expand upon. Left me disappointed to have such a limited response after I poured so much into that letter. I was hoping at least that it would open a route for discussion so that I could discuss with her my experiences in full detail without feeling as if I were being persecuted. Too bad.
Congratulations on the publication.
--------------------
superstition
1: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation
2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary
|
OneMoreRobot3021
punky jewster
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 55,475
Loc: new york shitty
Last seen: 8 hours, 14 minutes
|
|
Hi, for anyone who is interested in how this exchange between my sister and myself is going...We last left off about 5+ months ago and I had written this letter to my sister, after she wrote some things to me that really hurt me after I got my essay on the psychedelic experience published. She read the letter, said it gave her a lot to think about it, and then requested we table the discussion until her final semester of her PhD study was over and her General exams were over.
Well, that was late January. Then other things started stacking up. We never did have a conversation, and I felt like more and more we were growing apart. It's not just that we were both busy, and living in different cities it was that I really felt like I was a low priority to her. I'd call her and rather than get a call back, it was a G-Chat message next time she and I were on gmail at the same time. Or an email answering a voicemail. As much as I love text I'm a huge fan of human-to-human contact...I hate the phone but when you don't live close to someone and it's all you got, there's so much to be said for real conversation, not paced by seeing that the other person is typing...
I voiced this to her over the phone a few weeks ago. Then this past weekend she mentioned she was coming to the city and she would like to have dinner on Saturday night.
We went to this little French spot I know, really quiet and quaint with only room for about twelve people. We had our own little corner and eventually the conversation got where I hoped it would, though it was good just catching up. The thing about my sister Nika is that she doesn't really like having heavy talks...whereas I don't really see any conversations more important to have with people I love than ones dealing with what things mean to each of us and who we are and how we understand each other.
I had sent her an email the other day just about life, and mentioned that I met Alex and Allyson Grey at a memorial service for Dr. Albert Hofmann and about how I had gotten up and spoken in front of a group of 50 or so people, and how that was going to be great practice because I have a fear of public speaking and I have to perform a wedding in a year...I was very excited, and she responded about how she was suspicious of Alex Grey and skeptical about him.
Which was obviously tied completely into the drug thing...because he talks so openly about his LSD use.
So she asked at dinner if I wanted to talk about the email. And I said which one? She said the Alex Grey one but I said well we never talked about the big email I sent you, and we got into it. Essentially I felt as if she was the plaintiff and I was the defendant and I was really just having to defend everything about my entire lifestyle. Not just my drug use but my job, my increasing sense of spirituality and interest in exploring it, my attitude towards life. Everything.
She said that to her it seemed that I had 'lost something' I once had. When I asked what it was, she said it was a sense of drive or ambition. Listening to her say something like that I was forced to say that she doesn't even keep in touch with me enough to know what kind of level of drive or ambition I have right now. While I do have long-term goals of a sort, she finds it very hard to accept that right now I am entirely focused on paying my rent while learning how to Be Here Now. That my focus right now is getting to know myself as a being in a body. That every day is an unbelievably aware awakening to how I function, how the universe functions, how we interrelate.
That all sounds well and good to her but for her, "success" is the only true measure of a person's life. She said to me, what if 10 years go by and you're still a barback who takes LSD and calls himself a writer but doesn't have anything published? She's obsessed with the idea of me getting things published. Look, not all writers work that way. I write fragments and I know that what's in my future are great big works...I'm still learning about myself as a writer and a person, and what if I don't want to share that with the world? That's nobody's business but my own.
She said that this was oversimplifying things, but that she could boil it down to one of two things, when it came to the LSD and other psychedelics: That there was something to the experience, I'm right, and she's wrong, or that her mistrust of the experience is correct and she's right and I'm wrong. I literally did a double-take. I asked her if she could seriously think it was such a simple thing as that, of one of us being right and the other one wrong?
I said...this isn't academia, we aren't proving theories...this is LIFE. And you and I live differently. At this point she was crying a bit and I asked why she was so upset and she asked why I wasn't. I said you have no idea how happy I am that we are having this conversation. You're trying to convince me of something but all I want is for us to understand each other. This is a dialogue, one that will go on our entire lives. Who are you, who am I, how are we going to lives our lives differently but still coexist? That's fucking LIFE right there!
The conversation never ended. It just sort of died. Then we went and had a cool-down drink, and talked about..you know. Everything else.
I'm glad we talked but I was still left so disappointed in the way she approached the whole thing. I value her opinion and I value her taking on the role of "concerned older sister" and understand that she is very rules-oriented and safety-conscious and academic but I just wish she wouldn't talk down, or try to convince. It's highly upsetting. Psychedelics are a huge part of my life. I asked her what about my interest in them was any less valid than her studying Art History? I'm reading about the chemistry of them, the pharmacology, the biological effects on the body, the history of drug use, the philosophy of drug use, delving into art that has been affected by the experience. I approach it almost academically, except one thing that separates me from her is that I dive right into it too. She said flat out she thinks it's better to have an objective view of things and stand back and watch them. I didn't even know what to say about that.
At least things got talked about. But there's a lot of work to do..
--------------------
The Drug Policy Alliance Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"The psychedelic experience - it has a tremendous force to revivify the spirit, particularly because it is not an ideology. It is not something someone 'figured out.' It is an EXPERIENCE. And this is important to bear in mind." - McKenna.
"We're not mad, we're just doing what we want. You rigid thinkers can't recognize the healthy sanity of that." - Harlan Ellison, "Crackpots"
|
Lion
Balance
Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 3,211
Loc: Kali Yuga
Last seen: 5 days, 18 hours
|
|
Quote:
She said to me, what if 10 years go by and you're still a barback who takes LSD and calls himself a writer but doesn't have anything published?
That quote stung me personally. Words really have the power to sculpt an entire false reality in the mind, and these ones are particularly constrictive and narrow IMO.
Glad to hear you're conversing with her and letting her know how you feel. I am very open about psychedelics with my family and they're supportive and curious. I also have problems connecting with my sister, but she's just beginning college so I don't expect her to understand my life experience and world-view, just as I know I struggle to understand where she's coming from.
--------------------
"You can't make something original? Don't worry about it. Make a cup of clay so your brother can drink." ~Rumi
"My child, because you think you are the body, for a long time you have been bound. Know you are pure awareness. With this knowledge as your sword, cut through your chains and be happy!" ~Ashtavakra Gita
"May all beings realize the ecstatic transparency of their own minds." ~Lao Tzu
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here
Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 12,761
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Ca...
Last seen: 55 minutes, 15 seconds
|
|
She sounds pretty attached to her opinions 
I'm sure it would be nice if she wasn't, hey?
OMR, I think it's clear that you're well on your way to living a life that is utterly true to yourself. You seem to know intuitively what's good for you in a way most people probably don't. I don't know how important it is to you for your sister to approve of your lifestyle; maybe it makes sense to let go of that hope completely. But a few years down the road it should be clear to even her that your life is far more fulfilling and promising than any career or portfolio ever could be.
You're the wise one here.
--------------------
-oOo-
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. -- `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
-oOo-
| |
|
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit 
Reply 
Quote 
