Were you to ask everyone who's known me to use five adjectives to describe me, I guarantee one that will not show up in the data is "sane."
But the first time I even considered the notion was waking up, disoriented, with a tube down my throat and a catheter in my cock, to say nothing of the spaghetti coming out of my arms. The electrodes, I had no opinion about.
It would still be a bit before I found out about the catheter, and the tube was only confirmed by way of a small mirror on the opposite wall of the ICU room I was in. And I had only one thought:
"Well, fuck. I can't even do that right."
This is, of course, the story that -- back in 2000, especially -- people wanted to hear to confirm the horror show of MDMA killing kids at raves. I also wanted them to at the time, so I did that thing where I wrote a column and ended up winning another fucking award from Columbia ... that's not a brag; a column about drug use ending in a suicide attempt is not really something one points to in interviews.
At the time, I was:
- working in the only role I could conceive wanting;
- pretty much done with the expectations of others;
- experiencing a level of freedom like never before; and (perhaps related)
- ~~single~~ not cohabitating.
These all apply today, though the second and third are way more of a heavy lift after college.
And so two weeks ago, when I rolled again in an anonymous group setting for the first time since -- look at all these comparable data points! -- the same thing should clearly have happened.
Spoiler: It didn't.
For the reasons I wanted to write that column all those years ago, I feel compelled to write this -- and it's Wednesday, so the parallelism works.
It's comparatively easy to write about the psychedelic experience when it's negative; you don't have to describe shit your audience doesn't understand. You're essentially a sympathetic character who admits they lost their way and regret the error, so society basically says, "I hope you learned your lesson."
At nearly 45, I have. It's not at all the one I was supposed to, and it took a quarter-century and psilocybin.
(This isn't exactly a beehive of conformity, so this is likely of little surprise to many. But indulge me in explaining why.)
The aspects I cited earlier are a mix of personal and interactive attributes, but they are all external facing. They are things others can glean from conversation; they are part of my persona; they are not me.
If you cannot understand the difference here, tread lightly with MDMA (not trying to be a dick; this is harm reduction, as I will be encouraging drug use later under the right circumstances).
For all the lip service I've gotten about how "you just need to love yourself" (like everybody else does, since it's so easy), what's been almost universally ellided is "no, no, you don't need to figure out who that is; that's what we're here for." Society, not the people you surround yourself with per se, though if both have the same goals, it's going to be a slog.
That's difficult to escape in adolescence. I met vanishingly few people who actually upheld the ideals of PLUR -- to be sure, there were some, but they tended to look askance at those of us looking to do increasing amounts of drugs without any goal of an epiphany.
Who needs one of those when you can find a cuddle pile? (Narrator: Powderhorn never could.)
The Matrix came out while I was a raver, so "I can only open the door; you have to walk through it" was already floating about in the national consciousness (and sampled in at least one otherwise unremarkable house track). To be exposed to the rave scene was not to become a raver ... necessary but insufficient.
And the girl who opened the door did so because she saw something in me that it would take, again, a quarter-century to figure out. But I was 17 and she was showing attention, so I totally misread it -- and it likely didn't hurt that if you'd asked me to sketch the ideal girl and I had any drawing skill just ahead of going to college?
I was in the rave scene for three reasons: She's really hot, I like oontz, and there are drugs.
Not ideal.
It wasn't all at once. We met in 1997 and went to a single party. She returned two years later, kicked off the weekly schedule (much to my live-in girlfriend's chagrin) since this time I had a car and forbade any of us (she had a couple of dormmates who became fixtures) from rolling. I gave her a ride to the airport one August Saturday, got back to the U-District and rounded up the dorm chicks for the trip to NAF.
We all knew damn well what the plan was.
And if I'd been able to accept what happened that night for what it was, things would likely look a lot different.
Instead, I tried forcing the rave scene and people I knew into the ideal I'd come up with. It's not me; it's them! As with alcoholism, this can work for a time, but there is a fuse.
So we get to June of the following year. By now, I'm rolling three times a week, because reality is way to depressing to actually handle. I'm behind a girl for a massive party (new convention center ... great idea! Drop ravers in a space replete with ATMs!) and when she turns around, there's that "well, she's going to teach me something" gut feeling.
Three weeks later, her screaming at me in my apartment for her "fucking car keys" (I'd provided the ride after she parked at my place; she left the party with another dude) set the wheels in motion for looking in that tiny mirror.
It's tempting to say I didn't push far enough during that period of my life, letting others still define my goals. And I retreated to the societally accepted comfort of drinking instead of those actually dangerous pills.
Where I pretty much stayed for a couple of decades, with a late branching out to adding pot. Talk about growth and personal development.
A few months into sobriety and after all manner of treatment for depression failed with rehab and several further suicide attempts in the rear view, I happened upon a review of Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind miniseries and of course then devoured it.
Here was a journalist I respected presenting information I didn't know. So I did a lot of research and started growing my own shrooms.
Three-and-a-half months later, it's time. The apartment is immaculate, and I have taken intentionality and being able to explain it as a simple statement to heart, so I ask that the rumination be taken away. That cruft, the background noise of self-doubt, the constant reminder of failure that you can dull with practice and concentration but cannot excise.
I'm not going to try to explain the ineffable; suffice to say, when I came to on the floor, I could hear the fridge and my cat sniffing at me. And nothing else.
The questions escalate over the course of several well-spaced trips. By this point, the visuals are actually more irritating than fun, as they're not what I'm here for. And they tell me one required point on my path -- what I want to do next -- but no way to get there.
This kicks off a year in which I slowly reject one layer after another of the expectations of others. I buy a van to live in because a rent hike ate my food budget; I'd already had to rehome the kitty. Having built out the van to survivable, I quit my soul-crushing job. I start hanging out with the old hippie who's been helping with the van. Though looking for work, I'm not feeling it at all ... all I can find is what I don't want, and dear fucking god, will y'all stop telling me I don't deserve better than a meaningless job with no direction that as a bonus barely services my debt? So I cut off a lot of people while literally living off charity and promising it will all become clear Soon™.
(This is where I like to fantasize I didn't go far enough in college, but I didn't have the spine.)
It's a rather isolating position, but the liberation makes up for it.
Unlike that first shroom trip, where the before and after were night and day, allowing me to explore without self-doubt -- not knowing who I am and therefore unable to be comfortable with myself, let alone love myself -- the journey of self-discovery felt glacial at times and perhaps mildly apparent at its most aggressive.
Life is certainly a journey, but finding out what that life looks like is very much a destination. Your life cannot begin until you're at the station. It's a life up to that point, in much the same way people delude themselves into thinking they're a sub between partners. (Like you're not going to get all switchy at some point! Pshaw!)
But once I landed -- and you'll absolutely know when you do if you've been there before, if only in your youth -- things became oddly easy and progressive. The job was one conversation with an old friend, sending a resume and a 30-minute phone interview. Despite my crippling social anxiety that characterized, well my entire life, I hit the ground running as a friendly but sometimes pushy reporter (yeah, the shrooms went for "your field, but nothing you've done before," which is to say I did, but metaphysics is beyond the scope of whatever noun applies to the current length of this post).
And then comes the regional burn, an offshoot of Burning Man, which said retired hippie bought my ticket for as part of his camp, gave me a ride to, made sure I was hydrated after eating some shrooms and pretty much left me to my own devices among 3,000 people who would be wearing less as the days wore on.
I'd be lying if I said the parallels between the raver and burner communities didn't sent a small pang of fear as I took my vape and beer with absolutely no idea where the fuck I was going. So, why was I at raves? Already on drugs; chick ain't here ... ooo ... those are some sweet beats.
And then I got it (remember what I ate). I was here because I was supposed to be here. Whatever happens is supposed to happen. What others give to me; what I give to others. We're all meant to interact as we do. There are no mistakes. It is all ephemeral and will not come again.
And I'd not read the burner literature.
But it was nothing if not logical to just pile on ... some MDMA here, obviously weed, usually with hash, plenty to drink, the occasional nitrous balloon, probably something else I'm forgetting. Putting me in the best actually furnished seat in the entire space for the culmination of the event as the effigy burns to the ground.
But the whole time I was there, because I'd decided someone else's life wasn't for me, I was present. I wasn't thinking about anything other than ... fuck, I really wasn't thinking, truth be told. I was just following whatever was shiny and meeting amazing people.
And I came away with it not with a sense of regret that it was over, but rather thankful that this was the beginning.
Be safe, but don't neglect yourself. This is likely insanely woo-woo, but it's my belief, and I can still write straight news and balance a checkbook. There is no dichotomy, even though I wish I could escape a couple more expectations!
(no time to edit; I've eaten into tonight's burner meetup already)