Iraq refused to let UN inspectors into their prettiest houses, the press ran all over America looking any family who had four or more children at one time, the Cowboys are all but out of the playoffs race, people gave thanks by eating, and I still found time to ignore most of it and read Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception. I guess we all have our priorities.
I don't know why it took me so long to read the eighty page trip. I've always had a fondness in my heart of The Doors, and I know I still have a picture of Jim Morrison somewhere. I've never had the opportunity to take peyote or mescaline (Huxley's magic medicine), but psilocybin mushrooms have been on the menu a few times. Huxley even a mentions the word Weltanschauung in it, which I first read in an Ian Shoales column. Still don't know what it means though.
As I began reading Doors Of Perception, the text was a sort of baseball card collection of thoughts. I found myself saying "Got it, got it, need it, need it, got it," to many of the notions of Huxley, but as soon as I agreed to the statement that what is important is the experience and not the reason for the experience, he'd go into the Allness and Infinity of folded cloth and on to the question of human existence. Talk about testing how far an idea can go within the limits of coherency.
But we all go too far. Faulkner could hang on a sentence for pages, people will shop for hours just to find one shirt, fans will drive long distances to see their favorite bands play, hikers climb mountains just to come back down, some Christians feel the need to justify the world through one book, and many try to explain their lifestyle through the type of music they really enjoy at the moment.
We all wish that what we're doing has more importance than it actually does, but it doesn't. A hit of mushrooms or mescaline will definitely alter many perceptions and maybe even help a person realize some of their gifts and faults, but the planets won't align, the angels won't respond to your requests, and all the questions won't be answered. Even if somehow all of your questions do get answered while tripping, it doesn't mean they're right.
Everybody wants a reason to exist even if they don't say it out loud, and we'll go to great lengths to explain why we are the way we are. People find their callings in life, they explain the meaning in whatever they do, and they rationalize their habits and cravings. So, we make up answers to our own questions even though there is no definite explanation, and in an attempt to explain ourselves, we go so far that everything comes out as fanatical.
Of course, there is a way out of all the rambling, but it takes courage. Instead of thinking about the big moral questions we struggle with, we can just pay attention to the insignificant. After all, we've got movies to talk about, actors and actresses personal lives to mull over, scandals, dead princesses, ways to lose weight during the heavy holiday season, sports, and gossip, gossip, gossip.
So there you have it. You can either think too much about questions that can never truly be answered, or ignore it and be entertained by the silliness around you. Man, it seems like there should be some sort of happy medium. Maybe we could just think about human existence on certain days and watch sports on the weekends. Or maybe take one month (not much goes on in June) a year to meditate on all of the ways to improve ourselves.
National Contemplation Month. That's not a bad idea. There could be little tents with folks drumming and playing sitars, incense burning, and people humming, thinking, and pondering. Clothing stores could sell robes to signify a person's contemplation state--signaling to others they should be left alone with their thoughts. National sponsors could get in on the act. Phone companies giving discounts for phone calls about deep thoughts, rental car companies could come up with spiritual journey rates, Taco Bell could sell a contemplation combo, book stores could have Huxley read-ins, mescaline and peyote would be legal during the festivities as long as people promised not to operate heavy machinery, and it would end with a great, big extravaganza with fireworks, and parades, and singing, and gifts.
Or am I taking this idea a little too far?
Chris Jungle has been having more fun talking to dead authors than actual people lately.