Yeah, I know: the loony left. But screw it. One of the joys of not having any power is the freedom to say and think what we want.
Anyway, tell me your deep-think, marijuana-inflamed theories. I remember reading that Paul McCartney had a Beatles secretary follow him around after he smoked pot for the first few times, taking notes about what he said, only to be disappointed by his thoughts later.
But I think it's ridiculous to dismiss out of hand ideas, theories, thoughts that you have while smoking pot. I think it puts one in touch with another aspect of existence, a concept that humanity has embraced for thousands of years.
And for the record, I'm not much of a pothead...
One of the last times I smoked was day 3 of Katrina. I called my dad, high as a kite, and deeply upset by what was going on. I proceded to lay out for him EXACTLY what I thought was going on: that Bush was paralyzed and that eventually Rove or Andy Card would gingerly approach him and tell him that THE WORLD WAS FUCKING WATCHING US ABANDON 50,000 AMERICANS.
Turns out, that's precisely what happened - according to Newsweek, Andy Card brought Bush a DVD of the suffering, pushing him to action. (I also felt that Chertoff was himself gingerly stepping forward, scared to act without Bush's approval, yet smart enough to know how bad the situation was).
Anyway, maybe this isn't blisteringly brilliant, but it was a moment when my thoughts high were pretty dead on.
I smoked the other night and had the usual flow of insights. After this introduction, I'm sure any lack of profundity will be greeted by some of the usual snickers, but what the hell.
Here's an interesting little Jungian synchronicity: I was high, and felt how scratchy and rough my clothing was. I kind of wished I had some kind of smoking-jacket-type robe to chill out it and not be all harsh. Then I thought how in so many movies, the dude wearing the (male) silk robe is portrayed as effeminate and gay. Comfort and sensuality = effeminate.
The next day I absently turn on the TV, and the Tom Hanks movie Road to Perdition was on. I'd never seen it, watched for 5 minutes when BOOM, Hanks confronts a total fop homosexual in a hotel room, wearing the typical silken robe.
OK, yeah, great, no big deal. But what I realized while high was that... so many of these leitmotifs, received wisdom, characterological truths are utterly synthetic. Lazy shorthand, recent inventions, unreflective of anything deeper. I started to think (as is typical with many people smoking pot, a cliche that actually is interesting) about the scale of human existence, how recent an invention civilization was. And thus how recent many of our seemingly deep qualities are.
For example, aggression and greed. Common thought that humanity (men?) are at heart aggressive, selfish, greedy - all to gain advantage for procreation. But what if this is a condition of civilization and no deeper than that? What if mankind's true state, in the state of nature with relative abundance and relatively small populations without a jostling for resources, is actually fairly calm, altruistic, peaceful? I don't mean to fall into an edenic trap here, but still...
I've read that genes themselves can be activated by the environment. So that a relatively nonviolent person can have certain genetic traits activated by a violent environment - becoming something they otherwise would not have become. So perhaps civilization itself has created a different kind of human that would otherwise have existed.
Also, it could mean that our myths, received wisdom, etc (that lead to the "truth" that a character in a silk robe is homosexual) are utterly shallow. Merely surface phenomenon that are appropriate for mankind in civilization, but hardly universal, hardly the deepest truth of existence.
What's my overall point? That in a 21st century, weapons of mass destruction armed, media-soaked, overpopulated, increasingly resource-deprived world, searching for some center, some bastion of rationality and reason may be an utter illusion.
Anyway, this may be a foolish diary. I know how it sounds. But again, fuck it. Is it any stupider than trying to play "gotcha" with the media or Alberto Gonzales?
Tell me your pot-fueled theories.