So at a dinner conversation at a med school, I was talking to some people and at some point we ended up on the topic of why I didn’t particularly like drinking heavily. What I said was that getting drunk was never much of a prerequisite for me to enjoy myself – that I am not very inhibited as a person and at some point at night, I act like I’m drunk anyway.
If being drunk means being spontaneous and uninhibited and relaxed and willing to say or try anything with honest intention, then I’m always drunk. I told the girl across from me that I hardly needed to drink to be willing to karaoke, not to mention singing right there in the restaurant … on an improvised tune. She told me promptly to make up a baroque melody, and I did, and I sang it without hesitation.
Alcohol or drug-induced euphoria or transcendentalism is an overarching state-of-being that exists on its own, independent of the specific cause. For people who have forgotten that, when they were kids, they basically acted high all the time (saying stupid things, shouting inappropriately, breaking rules, etc.), I guess they try to reclaim that lost trait through drugs, since drugs are the more mature excuse for acting dumb than just plain acting dumb. Kids don’t know any better; adults need to consume substances to excuse themselves for not knowing any better.
A recent study showed that college students who were given fake-out drinks (dry) still acted drunk and silly after they thought they had consumed enough alcohol to be drunk. That says a lot about societal learned behaviors. The point is, they acted silly ’cause they thought they had an excuse outside of themselves to be silly. But they were already silly deep down.
John Coltrane used to have a heroin habit, among other things. At one point, he gave up drugs altogether, stopped participating in grungy clubs. And then he created some of the most entrancing, hypontizing music I’ve ever heard. I listen to his late creations and I am instantly transported, I am instantly liberated and transfixed, my whole body participating in the intoxicating music.
Transcendentalism and neo-childhood can be accessed through substances, but there are plenty of other ways to reach them without damaging brain cells, getting hangovers, or accidentally procreating. People shouldn’t need an external excuse to experience emotional liberation.
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