Disclaimer: I do not recommend the use of drugs, this is a text that talks about them, just as a detective story talks about murder, and one does not think that the author recommends it. Its goal is to understand the drugs and be responsible for their use.
On Time and Drugs
Doesn't it seem strange that "having time" means doing without it? When there is time, it does not exist, and when there is no time, it is the moment when we are most aware of it.
"Time is measured in motion" suggested Aristotle. The time that is so useful to science, and just as valuable, but so useless, to the human who constantly refutes it. I find it incredible that time goes so slow in a bus at 40mph, maybe because is full of humans in the center of Buenos Aires, and that time neither moves while stuck in traffic. Movement is the change of things, but things only change if we become aware of it, this continues Aristotelian thought, time would not exist if consciousness did not exist, thus, the manipulation of consciousness, modifies the time we live in the present.
Time as we know it is one, past, present, and future, but both the past and the future is an amorphous idea located in a corner of the neurons, while the present is the only one that conflicts with us. Let me be clear, nothing of the future, and nothing of the past, matter, if it is not experienced in the present. It is the now, the only way to manipulate time, and narcotics, pain, and pleasure are the three levers with which it is possible to manipulate it; the absence of any of them is therefore also responsible for its changes. It may seem a broad definition because at all times we are under the effect of any of them, but only a fraction of the time we are aware of what we feel, and there are even fewer times when, based on what we feel, we relate it to time.
I have decided to give a place to narcotics because I cannot think of anything that has a greater power of manipulation over our conscience. I will speak independently of the morality of their use, you will take care of that because I am not the least bit interested in it. Also, I have decided to use the word narcotic because its etymology seems to me to be the most appropriate, from the greek narkoun (to make numb, to make paralyzed, to make astonished)
When consuming substances considered narcotics, we are astonished, we are stunned because we are experiencing in one of its maximum splendors, the deformation of space-time; It is not in vain that ambrosia, the food of the gods, and the reward of the bravest warriors in societies much more ancient than that of hippies and cannabis, had been the Amanita Muscaria -the mushroom from Mario Bros- also suspected of being the main ritual element of the initiates in the Eleusinian rites.
Everything that transcends our consciousness annuls time, but it is important to distinguish between the annulment of time, and the suppression of thoughts, as do anxiolytics, or the daily use of marijuana; in these cases, consciousness is kept at bay, and settles us in immanence. The danger of narcotics is tied to their benefit, to transcend one must relinquish control, and fear suppresses any positive effect the experience may have.
My personal experience with narcotics
Having the support of a middle-class family is easy to get marijuana, and in Buenos Aires, is the first drug an adolescent can get. I was about fourteen and lived outside the capital city of Buenos Aires, once you cross the Matanza river , all laws are lighter. I started to go to clubs in the city of Quilmes where you could get cheap alcohol and smoke whatever you want inside, at this time marijuana was an experience I couldn't control and I smoked it to be part of the groups who were there. That is to say, most of the time I was unaware of my surroundings. When the club closed at 6 AM, fights would always break outside, even when the police were in the corner because they knew every night would happen the same, boys and girls with a ton of shit in their bodies, starting to throw bottles and punches just for the sake of malicious proud, until the police came in and shoot the shotguns with rubber pellets, people would disperse and some of them would get arrested. In this period of my life, the use of drugs was an abuse, without control over it, which would get me in situations I wouldn't get otherwise, just for the simple fact of not knowing what was I experiencing.
Time fly, at least now that I'm remembering. Until I was seventeen the process remain the same, then I decided to play tennis for a year where there was no place for any abuse, but at eighteen I started again. This was the time where I started to go to electronic parties, and there there was ketamine, LSD, MDMA, Poxi-ran -an adhesive that you inhale- and of course, marijuana. I did all of them, but time taught me when I started to lose my ability to write, which for me was the most important activity in my life. I will not jump deep on them, but let me tell you that it wasn't recreational. None of it was for me, but that didn't impede me to go to the same parties which I still like from time to time, LSD is still a ritual for special occasions I do with some of my friends, but not even once a month. Marijuana is the only thing I can enjoy more often, but it is always with a purpose in my mind, and I think this is the most important aspect of drug use, to do it with a purpose. Not because someone offers, not because you have to, not because is there, because it will only make you harm.
Today I use marijuana recreationally, I'm a writer and sometimes it helps me to create new ideas, and see things from a different perspective, but I know the dosage, I know when to eat, what to drink, when and where to smoke it or eat it. It is an educational process.
To use drugs implicates a big responsibility with oneself, and with the ones around you, and it should not be taken lightly. One must be informed, and if there is a motive to do it, you must be in an environment you know, with people that you know of, learn how much, what to eat and, what to drink. Be responsible and if there is use, give it a use, and not use it just for the sake of it.