Jupiter had too much nip:
All of us who were in school in the sixties have a story like this. My best friend and I spent a long night in a small apartment under the spell of a psychoactive substance. Around 2 a.m. he had a thought so profound that he needed to commit it to writing. He scrawled it on a scrap of paper and stuffed it in his pocket.
Coming down the next morning, we remembered the paper and eagerly unfolded it. On it was written this sentence:
“The walls are f*cking brown.”
(I’ve put in the asterisk for propriety)
The birth of the deepity.
‘There is a story of a man who got the experience from laughing gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was “A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.”‘ –Bertrand Russell
Hear on the radio (during car trip): Man learns the secret of the universe while on ‘shrooms, but forgets it afterwards. He re-learns it on a second trip, but forgets again. The third time, he manages to write it down. The great discovery was: “The banana is big, but the banana skin is bigger.”
Driver went into fits of giggles, so we pulled over for a while….
^WHeard. I can haz prufreadin skilz?
That loosely describes evolutionary arms races, which loosely describe how the whole world works. Not the universe though. So it’s wrong.
Our incredible bit of wisdom written down for posterity was this: “Jeff beat the pepper grinder people.”
“They can’t take your space.” Which is unquestionably true. And sounds a bit tea partyish, now that I think on it. Fuck. That’s who those people are. (Lest you think I kid, it is a fact that both Ann Coulter and governor-elect Kasich are deadheads.)
I think I once read that there is a part of the brain that is responsible for this “sense of deep significance.” It becomes activated not only when we experience a genuine connection to something in the environment that has deep significance for us, but when under the influence of drugs, during epileptic seizures, after brain damage, and when having mystical experiences.
For some reason, that last one is supposed to be taken seriously. It has nothing to do with what’s going on in the brain: no, we discovered some truth so amazing we can’t put it into words that do it justice. Like, the way my hand …. is the universe itself, man.
I remember thinking up an ad campaign for microwave Jesus tenders. Tasty morsels, pre-tenderized for 6 hours on the cross. Just pop ’em in the wave and they can be ready in minutes.
I thought it was excruciatingly funny at the time, on many levels.
…also just got reminded of “one of those” kinds of dinner parties. The tablecloth we used was made out of paper, and there were lots of crayons and colored markers to play with for jotting down those things that were too priceless not too.
I dimly remember everyone getting going on porn titles somewhere through the second course (and about time everybody was peaking)… and that’s when I came up with “The Sloppy Second Coming of Christ”.
Looking back on it, I think I can see a pattern.
…in attempting to describe my disgust with the surrounding litter to a friend at a beach party while I under the deep influence of industrial strength acid a decade and a bit back…all that could come out of my mouth was the word “plastic.”
It’s amazing how I remember that experience vividly. And my feelings about the subject are exactly the same today…which is normal. But there was complete dissociation between my brain activity and my human ability to communicate. Kinda like a progressive bill working it’s way threw Congress…the protest relayed to my tounge had obviously taking several paths of meandering, contemplating, debating and obfuscating before it was whittle down to a singular word that came out completely absurd to my listening audience. 🙁
This story reminds me of a review George Orwell once wrote of a strange autobiography, written by another Englishman who had lived many years in the far East. He had been an opium addict, and during one particular session had unlocked the secret of the universe, and had the forethought to write it down for posterity. When he woke up, he snatched up the piece of paper and read these words:
“The banana is great, but the skin is greater.”
Oops, just realised that someone beat me to it in these comments. Like, far out, man. But my story has an earlier vintage. Maybe this is an urban legend that has done the rounds.
The man in question was H.R.Robinson, who seems to have lead quite an interesting life. More here:
http://www.orchidbooks.com/book_reviews/modern_de_quincey_fortean.html
Remember kids: only users lose drugs.
So, with all that for anecdotes.. What does one feel like when one realizes there was no real profundity?
Accommodationist!!
There is a Tool song that deals with this kind of thing: Rosetta Stoned. Bad-ass.
My favorite memory from the LSD epoch, was a fellow university library shelver while on a trip, re-arranged all the books in the Reference section per color deeply disturbing the catalog number order. And when he came in to work the next day, he remarked, wtf, all these books are f*cked up as he had no memory what he did.
‘WHERE DO THEY WASH AMBULANCES?’ was mine.