Essay on Myself When I’m at college with the chances all around me for mind expanding exercise if I just paid attention I feel like the world is at my feet because anything it can throw at me I can learn about and if I can’t learn about it, I’m still human, and therefore, through my senses, I can experience it… this balance of experience vs. knowledge is a precarious one which is hard to maintain because the experiential part is so much more enjoyable at first: immediate reward of the Pavlov dogs of this generation: the late teens to twenty something. The majority of us are so sucked in to immediate reward of sensation and an immediate altering of consciousness without effort that they are slowly becoming useless for any real effort because we are too easily distracted by our joys…
… but oh, what joys we have, when we can sharpen our minds and expand our pupils and drag in as many experiences we can of difference perceptions and ideas and moments of beauty because we just want to be let loose on the world to drink it all in and see everything we can get our hands on… we respect learning and knowledge but understand that that is not all humans are capable of, that we are more than automatons. Yes, we can learn many things from books and understand a lot of the intricacies of the world, but if we haven’t seen them, felt them, visited them in person (and often times under strange mind states so our receptors are completely open to the experience of the place) what good is it? On the same note, isn’t it more natural to experience what you can and drink it in instead of analyzing it constantly… analysis seems to be what humans believe themselves to be built for but only if we have shut ourselves off from emotion. Opening ourselves to emotion and experience we can feel and understand what can never been said in words and maybe what should not be said in words until they have been properly digested. Instead of this drive (these orders) to read and learn and then analyze and write about and dissect maybe we should hold our moments of understanding inside until they have settled into our brains and made themselves at home. This way, when we speak of them, instead of assuming a false voice of objective fact, a so-called “ideal” that can never be reached, we can tell the stories of our memories infused with the truth of our understanding of the personal identity change that was brought about through this moment, however small the shift. This way, we are able to accurately describe all the far-reaching ripples that the event spawned by describing the way in which the scenery was changed after the ripples had passed: the places that are changed are the places that were reached by that bundle of sensory input.
I stirred the mix at first by throwing in another ingredient whenever possible, introducing a quirk to my mind that shifted my perception for a while; delicious drugs. When the old standbys lost their token awe, when the mental states were no longer new and interesting, more extreme shifts appeared as an option- now reality could be turned inside out and time sidestepped in eight to twelve hours. Spreading consciousnesses could reach more beauty than confined ones. Dissolving my awareness I could drink in every observation of my surroundings including human civilization and the natural earth. I collected these gems of experience like fine art to be revisited and re-enjoyed. But I kept asking for more and normal reality became a disappointment compared with the offerings of a reality flooded by acid-colored sparks. But human beings can adapt too quickly and so my brain did what it was supposed to and adapted to the new mode of consciousness so even that felt like normal existence.
Now I come to the layering of chemicals to create patterns and striations in consciousness that I’ve never tried before. I draw from nature, laboratories, tradition, pharmacies. The modern cocktail: adderall, marijuana, and psilocybin. We are bored with mere vodka, rum, and OJ concoctions, drinks with names that can be found in little handy bartending books and measured out with shot glasses and spoons. If we drink we drink to get drunk not to entertain our taste buds. Our preferences: lots of tolerable beer, high volume malt liquors, the cheapest grain alcohol. Never forget to add mad bowls to the night. Here in the mountains in this bubble of reality we drink and we test ourselves: how drunk can we get before throwing up, can we get drunk and be able to trek for half an hour through dark woods to get home?, can we lose ourselves by suppressing most of conflicting thoughts in our heads and letting desire and impulse remain, can I reach again the level of that perfect drunken night of the mindless dancing that involved every nerve of my body? When you live ten feet away from parts of the deciduous-and-conifer mess of New England mountainous forests getting drunk and making it home is a whole new problem, especially when in loco parentum know the woods as well as you do.
I learned that alcohol is not a versatile addition to the mental-physical structure if I don’t want to be distracted by stumbling at the very least, and vomiting and the worst, which is most of the time. A good drunk will put you on the floor, trumping some of the most creative mind-altering structures: when you add liberal amounts of alcohol to a body/mind/soul already perched precariously on the stacked plateaus of marijuana, amphetamines, and pharmaceuticals, it often results in a top-heaviness that can send the whole thing crashing to the ground, with you on top of it. Alcohol is now mostly reserved for either small bonding groups around wood fires or Tower-of-Babel-esque parties.
Yet however resolutely and deliberately I take up my time with science experiments on the versatility of my brain functions the call to knowledge rings fairly loudly, not in the natural urge for wisdom and understanding that may come with age but in the external demands of school and progress and our future lives that hang in the balance, because accounting for many decades of human life takes some planning and preparation so the journey (and the journeyer) doesn’t fall apart and disintegrate before a good portion of the road has been covered. I struggle between the demands of this reality paired with my own comprehension of the necessity and worth of certain obligations of life and the appeal of immediate gratification and satisfying experimentation. Education theory looms dark and conflicting in my thoughts. My educational experience gives rise to questions so I distract myself from them by questioning education in general. Classical or romantic? Directed or undirected? Punishments or rewards? Grades or pure feedback? Requirements or free reign? Writing or discussing? I know why I am in college and I know what I want to get out of it, so why do I do things antithetical to that purpose? Shouldn’t what I want play a part? Does that free choice hold the key to my downfall; do I know already how and why I will fail because it is my choice to do so? Will this journey of self discovery lead me to some place from where I will want to begin the next journey? I am not sure.  ¶ 9:23 PM