June '99 -> Present
Part of living vicariously through patri is getting to hear about drugs. I know a lot of people are rather less fascinated by them than I, but heck, its my mailing list. And besides, I think this is such a wonderful, positive drug, that I want you to hear about it.
Anyway, the drug I am pitching is MDMA, commonly know as "Ecstacy". I was introduced to it in June by a college friend, and all I can say is wow! It makes you feel euphoric, loving, and in touch with the world and people around you. The dancefloor is no longer a fragmented and scary place, it is a tribe, people moving in unison, filled with the same delight. As a relative of methamphetamine, it also makes you feel energetic and "speedy", which is part of what makes those crazy kids dance all night.
But the most wonderful thing, in my mind, (although euphoria is, by definition, enjoyable) is the way it removes the barriers to understanding oneself and others. Human beings are inherently good at rationalizing, at being dishonest with themselves, at glossing over unpleasant truths. For me at least, being on MDMA changes all that. I can no longer deceive myself, I see the real reasons for my actions. Now, I'm not saying that I am a horrible, messed up person, or that I lie to myself all the time. But the human brain is a complex entity which retains bad habits easily, and trying to use it through a mirror to scrutinize itself is a difficult sort of self-referentiality. MDMA makes it much easier.
It also helps in relating to other people. It can be very difficult to put ourselves in anothers shoes, to understand not only their rationality but their irrationalities. Being on MDMA eases that change in viewpoint. People understand each other more quickly, more naturally, without the barriers of miscommunication, dishonesty, and egocentricity that are part of most human interaction.
Now I suppose some of you are picturing an experience like the common perceptions about psychedelics, where one is revealed the Secrets of Life and the Mysteries of the Ancient, only to be unable to understand them upon awakening. I've scribbled quite a few incomprehensible things while on, for example, marijuana ("Hark - it all vibrates!"), but this is different. I freely admit that the ultimate test of a transcendant experience is how it effects your life when sober, and Ecstacy passes the test with flying colors. While some of the insights it gives are more alternate viewpoints than deep truths, there are enough of the latter to make the experience exceedingly worthwhile. And most importantly, my ability to be honest with myself in daily life has been steadily increasing. My ability to relate to other people? I don't know if I have made a lot of progress there, but at least I finally realize how far I have to go, and have some ideas about proceeding.
While poker was a significant source of the ideas I expressed in my previous emails, Ecstasy was also a major contributor, especially to the themes of honesty, communication, self-knowledge, and the belief that everyone is worthwhile and should be respected. I admit that the effects of drugs can vary greatly depending on setting and user, and that I am an introspective person who was concentrating on human nature during the same period I discovered MDMA, but reading the reports of other peoples experiences suggests that mine was not uncommon. Still, it is going to be a very different experience to take MDMA with a group of 4 close friends, talking the whole time, then to go to a rave and take it with 5000 other people and spend all night dancing. Both are experiences of love, togetherness and understanding, but the former is likely to be rather more soul-searching and profound. And my own experiences taking large amounts (2 or 3 pills) at raves were very different than taking small amounts (1 or 1/2) in more conversational settings. The former was more euphoric and intense, but the latter had most of the effects that I consider significant. Oh, and for those who are wondering "Just how often are you doing this?", the answer is once or twice a month.
All this has made the drug rather popular. In Britain, a country of 60 million people, between 500,000 and 2,000,000 use it each week. As a UK magazine article said:
"To those who had never taken illicit substances, Ecstasy's innocuous appearance was the opposite of what they had been told about drugs. There were no hypodermic needles, no ritualistic preparation. It came packaged, not as a seedy drug, but as the ultimate entertainment concept, with its own music, clubs, fashion and media - and to many it was the euphoric peak of a lifetime. In the 1980s, government drug campaigns hectored the young with images of addicts as pox-ridden anorexics, but these were far removed from the experiences of Ecstasy. Thousands of sunny smiles, the chatter of positivity, embracing total strangers - little wonder that Ecstasy's impact was to give people an overwhelmingly positive experience of illegal drug use. The chemical generation passed through the doors of perception into a world where drugs were not only acceptable, but glorious."
For those concerned about health effects, the most objective site that I have found is:
For more information, experiences, articles, and so forth, try:
Here & Now
There are a few more stories hanging around in the queue (?stack?), waiting to be told. Halloween on Castro Street in San Francisco with 250,000 revelers. Maybe even pictures of my costume. Until then, make sure you practice more than you preach, know thyself and do what makes you happy, practice moderation in all things, even moderation, and most importantly, do something new, different, and not quite in line with how you think of yourself. If it works, take all the credit, but if blame ever need be assigned, insist firmly:
"Patri made me do it."
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