Yep, pretty much any mind altering substance can teach you that. It is one thing to philosophise about it, but another thing entirely to experience it first hand. Can also be experienced through meditation, although it’s a skill that takes time to learn.
Getting high reveals how arbitrary the connection is between how you feel and how well things are going.
Submitted 1 year ago by LesserAbe@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
Scrof@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 1 year ago
I did that 10 days vipassana retreat where we meditated for more than 16 hours a day for 10 days. Eventually I got there, but it was very underwhelming, way to much work for too little blis/reward or what you want to call it. Never tried mind altering substances (other than alcohol and marijuana) because I’m too afraid to get hoked and to destroy my life.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Psychedelics won’t hook you. You will be very overwhelmed the first time and you will think about the experience and if it was pleasurable, you will probably be open to doing it again but it’s not an addictive experience unless you want it to be. And even then it will take you a long time to develop an addiction. One hit of LSD or some mushroom chocolates with people you can trust and enjoy being around would should be something everyone tries once. The art of the 60s will definitely have a whole new meaning.
Zahille7@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I still don’t get what this post is saying, and I’m totally sober right now.
“How arbitrary the connection between how you feel and how well things are going,” wtf?
Zeth0s@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It refers to the fact that your feelings are not a reflection of the reality, but a reflection of the perception of the reality. According to OP, this is proven by how feelings completely change by simply changing the way the brain perceives reality, via a psycotropic compound, while actual reality remains unchanged
TheWildTangler@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Good human
Ookami38@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
It doesn’t really matter what’s happening, with regards to how you’re feeling. You can be going through shit and having a good time, or king of the world and just miserable.
baked_tea@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I assume they refer to smoking weed. It can show you the mountain before you is not always high, and that it is not always a mountain.
Sober, you might feel completely different about some specific problem, but with this you can actually take a look at it and deconstruct the problem in peace
MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com 1 year ago
nice try, machine elves.
thantik@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Getting high just increases my anxiety more…it has never made me happy or relaxed me in any way.
perspectiveshifting@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Getting more anxious arbitrarily when high would also support their statement. They didn’t say that getting less anxious was what indicated a disconnection between feelings and reality
thantik@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Now this is an actual good argument. I might just have to concede that I’m wrong here in this case then. At least, anecdotally. I don’t know anyone who gets high and is just…the same. Which by your argument is what it would take to falsify OPs claim. Nice catch!
Numuruzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I used to enjoy it, but over time I ended up in a similar boat. Just a huge bust of anxiety, especially socially. But on the other hand, I feel pretty okay in the day to day. I’ve come to see it as a sort of forced introspection - not necessarily revealing anything I don’t already know about, but bringing it all to the surface and forcing the mind to see it. In that respect, it could still be drawing a line between feeling and how things are going.
Not that it makes it necessarily more universal, but I think there’s a grain of truth.
mjhelto@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I think some of it depends on where you live, what repercussions you have if caught, and how safe you feel when doing them (environment, friends, activities, etc.). I’m good now, but when it was illegal where I live, I found it harder to enjoy weed.
There also tends to be a level of anxiety felt strongly by those who bought into the “just say no” era of the war on drugs. That’s not bad, and I definitely understand it having been on the “drugs are bad, m’kay” side of things, but the more your believed minor drug use turned you into a junkie, the harder it was to question that.
My older sister is one of those types who still believe the propaganda. I get it and do not push it, but when she brings it up, I talk honestly about it. I think it’s helped her feel comfortable about the idea, but not enough to try it. I respect that.
XbSuper@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Or you just haven’t found the right drug
zepheriths@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It is weird to think about how much is determined by chemicals.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 year ago
Literally all your thoughts are determined by chemicals.
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 1 year ago
As I’ve gotten older, this is true, but in the reverse of what is implied. I can be like “man, what a great day, I got a ton done, I’m feeling very proud of myself, I think I’ll hit the vape.”
Cut to two hours of anxiety about a misspoken word in the midst of the aforementioned day punctuated by two panic attacks about tomorrow.
mjhelto@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I noticed, when I smoked like a fish – taking a hiatus from October 1 through the end of the year – I noticed a lot more connections between bullshit than when sober. It offers you a bit of insight that either makes you say, “hmm,” and move on with your day, or drives you to anger that you can’t see such things while sober.
Mrderisant@lemm.ee 1 year ago
My mom likes the saying “nothing is good nor bad only thinking makes it so”
intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Trying to be happy via drugs drives home just how non-arbitrary it is.
Drugs give you variation around a set point. Uppers crash you down. Downers make you tense when they wear off. Only real world work can move that set point around which drugs just make you fluctuate.
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Psychedelics can absolutely kick that set-point into another universe if you let them. I can’t begin to explain how it works or how it feels, but I have personally have had some very significant life changes since I started using them on a regular basis.
Sure, you can use psychedelics for fun, but in a proper environment they can be a strong driver for extremely healthy mental change.
Real work is an absolute requirement. No argument there. However, a person may need a complete mental rewiring to get to the point where they are willing to move forward. Like myself.
FitzNuggly@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They are being explored for clinical applications like treating depression.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Yeah but it doesn’t happen automatically on psychedelics. You’ve still got to do the work, inside the trip.
mjhelto@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I hate myself, this world, and most people so much that I want to do psychedelics just to kill that side of me and, hopefully, start feeling like I have some sort of power again. I am about to look into buying the spores and growing my own, but I don’t want a shit ton of extra shrooms. I just want to do one heavy dose, let my inner id die, and live my life again.
lankybiker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Well put