Are You High?

Michael Pollan changed the way I look at food. That's not an overstatement. The Omnivore's Dilemma is a great book and it literally started me down a different path with eating. Eat food, not foodlike substances has become a mantra of ours when shopping and eating. His other bit of advice, eat food, not too much, mostly plants has not stuck nearly as much though it nags in the back of my brain as what we should do so I would guess eventually I will steer us that direction.

So today I got a letter from him promoting his new book. On using psychedelic drugs to change your reality.

Ummm...well...

I don't get high. At all. I don't smoke pot. Never have. I don't use any other drug except for alcohol and I use very little alcohol. But I don't get high. Part of it is because of my sister's drug use and my upfront view of what that can do to a person and the people around them. Because it was such a part of my formative years, This is what happens when someone uses drugs, I was never even tempted.

But most of my friends got high. And when they were high we could have the deep conversations about life that I loved to have. Their high is my normal brain.

Brent and I have talked about this a lot. We aren't even sure what would happen if I got high. Because I already view the word a little differently. I think a lot of creative people do. You have to, to a point. You are painting or writing about or sculpting something that you see in your head and making it real. That's kind of trippy. And a lot of creative people get high or get drunk as part of their process. Tapping into that well of creative thought. I don't need to do that. It's always there.

Often when Brent is reading my fictions he's concerned it's about him. I've had other friends of mine write me after reading a story and say the same thing. "Was that me?" Well, no. Not unless it's a nonfiction piece and I tell you it was you. But they will recognize something they've done and think I have then turned them into a character in a story. And they can be right about the recognition of a phrase or a physical mannerism, but all that did was inspire another whole person. And I get it, if you aren't the sort of person who makes up people it's hard to wrap your brain around where they come from. I feel that way about friends who paint. How in the world did you get your hand and that brush to create that thing? I can't do that. So I understand that it's hard to imagine that someone else can.

I also dream very vividly. You all have heard stories about dreams that I've had. My imagination is strong. Even when I'm asleep. When my conscious mind isn't directing the train it sometimes goes off the rails. I'm pretty good at lucid dreaming but not always. Sometimes I'm just along for the ride. And it can get pretty crazy.

This is why the idea of doing psychedelics does not appeal to me at all. Letting my mind go unfettered on a trip? Oh my...that's just asking for trouble. But maybe I have found the secret to getting people to like my short stories, hand them a mushroom then a story.

"Oooh....his eyes were in the jar all along! Dude...."