Stoned and Drunk

Only stoned in this case. Never mix alcohol with a good joint, it makes you sick.

It was the fourth time I was trying. I didn’t get any buzz the first three times which I figured was something to do with me rather than the magic leaf. So I was intent on trying as many times as it takes to break into my mind. So I rolled up a joint which looked fucked up. God knows how I had to sort it into a shape recognizable. Then I smoked it. This time I did it right, as has been told by the masters. I took it deep into lungs and didn’t let it go for four proper seconds. This messed me up bad, I was coughing like crazy (mostly because the joint I put together was shitty), saliva drooling out of mouth, I ran to the sink to clean. Somehow, I managed to get a few good hits and put the joint off at half-length. I accepted that this is another failed attempt and I was just recovering from all the coughing when suddenly I realized that the vision is blurring. It was working at last!

So I sat down and tried to relax. Which was tough because my flatmate was knocking on my door. To ask me about something very inconsequential presumably. I didn’t want to be seen high and make him nervous – he is a delicate boy. So I ignored him and tried to focus on things I wanted to do. Focus is a bitch when you are stoned because your mind is like a train going through a wild place. It shifts and turns from one thing to another, without letting you know. It took me a proper 10 minutes to open my mail.

By the time I did open my mail, checked it somewhat and logged out, I totally lost where I was, I forgot that I already checked my mail. So I logged in again only to realize then that I already did it before. So I checked the mails again to see an ad there from some website saying ‘writing reviews can make you rich’. This line stayed with me For A minute or so before I realized something was screwed up about it. How can writing reviews on hotel and travelling websites make you rich, right? So now that I knew something was amiss here, I need to revisit that line to figure out where I read the damn thing. I drifted away and somehow came back to that thought in my head. But I forgot where I read it by that time. So I had to rewind back and strain a bit to recollect that it was from the mail. So I focused my eyes back onto the Lappy screen, changed the tabs to the mail with difficulty and searched for the mail in question. It took me a few glances around to find this mail, which was right at the top of inbox. So I read it again, this time with all the concentration I can gather as ‘How to write reviews that can make you rich’. I read it twice to make sure that I was reading it right and this one made sense, more or less. So I was satisfied, the world wasn’t ending yet. I logged out. The whole mail ordeal took me a good half-an-hour or more, can’t be sure because keeping track of time is also out.

My flatmate meanwhile was knocking away at my door all the time and it was making me anxious. I tried to listen to some Porcupine tree or something but it was adding to the anxiety. The thing about trance music is – it will take you to another level of pure joy when you are relaxed to start with, but if you are under some pressure or worry, it adds to the scare. So I put up a good comic movie ‘Lock, stock..’. It was especially good because I already watched it many times before and hence didn’t need to focus at all. I laughed when I understood a jokes and plot points but other than that, I was mainly staring at a screen with moving pictures.

Then I watched some Youtube comedy, waited till I was sure that my flatmate was asleep and got a plate, ate some food and lay on the bed - four hours after I smoked the joint. I was more in a trance state than I was sleeping the whole night, it was beautiful. The whole experience was as beautiful as it was weird, and I can get used to the weird part!

Update: Got stoned a couple more times now, getting a hang of it. It isn’t like anything I experienced before, you are left in totally a different state of mind. Alcohol is a lot more shitty and harmful compared to this. So, here are the links for those willing to learn more before applying their moral code upon the world: Myths, How does it feel really? I mean really?, Is it harmful? It is not magic either, caution is good, Where does this country – India - stand, The cause.

Give Up

You win some, you lose some. You try to win more than lose. You can fight hard for that and you try to improve yourself, it helps to have a target. But when the only thing in mind is beating the opposition without regard to the fight in itself, without appreciating the virtues of the game or work, when the target is to get ahead of someone irrespective of where you want to be, it is time to retrospect what it is that you set out to be and what has been happening since.

So, you don’t persist on some fights all together, you let them go. Because it is you who have to decide whether it is worth the effort and time. There may be better things to fight for, better things to slug out than straining over some battles you consider inconsequential,  just because you are compelled to by circumstances, or agonized  and enraged by some people. You don’t throw stones in mud, because you may have wars worth fighting, waiting ahead.

It takes some courage to do that – to give up – when people are watching and waiting to see you complete what you started. As if these people own a part of your battle and they are entitled to see you bleed and sweat over things irrespective of the worth of whole thing to you. They laugh at you when you fall, they do cheer when you succeed, but they are disappointed when you call it off, and they want to see you fight back, because they are invested in your efforts and struggle, irrespective of the results. These people, you can forgive, but don’t forget.

So, I run my own race, keep my own score, independent of the world around – at least I try. I change, to sync my goals to the changing circumstances and make situations compatible with my to-do thing. But I can’t let time and people change the goal posts, because fuck them both.