30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003
-- INFINITY.
"*30*."
INTERLUDE EIGHT: "Flushing Clean."
L'enfer, c'est les autres.
--Matsuo Bashõ
So it's early Fall and
Adrian
goes to Italy where the days are all beautiful, and he gets to take
DMT.
While I stay here where the days are considerably less than beautiful,
and I get to take French.
But let's get one thing
straight, right now: I have nothing against the French people or the
French
language. Some of my favorite writers are French. I have to
make this clear because the nature of Canada is such that, because of
our
tiny, yet densely populated French enclave in the East, there is a lot
of anti-French sentiment permeating this country. So, anyone
complaining
about having to learn the French language is instantly lumped in with
the
ignorant, grunting, anti-French masses-- most of whom seem to be either
a) uneducated yet absurdly powerful farmers, or b) out-dated British
loyalists
(you know the kind, the ones who still give a fuck about Queen And
Country,
think they're really special because they have relatives with James
Bond
accents, are intimidated by anything that's not vanilla white while
xenophobicly
believing that the habits and customs of other cultures are somehow
obscure
"jokes" on caucasian race, and who look towards England with rosy,
retarded,
dual-pivoting eyes while spouting colonial rhetoric à la "rule
Britannia
the sun never sets on the British empire we colonize and civilize the
dirty
orientals and asians God save the Queen daaarrrrrrr...."), either that
or they're c) angry Ukrainians who were picked on 75 years ago for
eating
borsch and perogies and not washing their hands enough-- primarily by
the
arrogant and retarded Britishers mentioned above-- and so have passed
on
their displaced rage to another group who they can safely hate while
they
nestle down in the web of ignorance and hatred that is Canada.
And,
please, let's not forget-- never lose sight of the fact-- that a lot of
the Canadian French are actually also assholes too.
But anyway, what I am
resentful
about is that by having to learn French I am being forced to jump
through
a pointless hoop like a trained ape-- because the amount of French I
need
for my thesis work is negligible. And, also, you absolutely
cannot
learn a language by taking a class. I am simply doing this
because
the University I have chosen has an out-dated attitude to education and
a misguided (and somewhat "British") idea of academic importance.
Fortunately, all I have to be able to do is read French, which
it
seems that I can do-- sort of-- with a dictionary or two.
Nevertheless,
I am still stuck in a class I am failing until the end of this
term.
Then I will have to translate a page of French and, hopefully, I will
finally
be at the end of this tedious nightmare. Anyway, compare and
contrast.
You be the judge of who gets the better deal.
Adrian's DMT trip:
Italy. Where it's
nice.
Adrian's on a beach.
(If there are palm trees,
he's probably rubbing himself and moaning.)
Some guy calling himself
Pan gives the DMT it to him. Pan scrapes it out of tree bark.
The interesting thing about
DMT is that it's safe. Lots of psychedelics claim safety, but DMT
actually, honestly, seems to deliver.
It's a substance that's
closely related to something that occurs naturally in the brain.
So when you take it, overwhelms neuroreceptors that already seem to be
there specifically for DMT, or the substance that's really like
DMT.
And then, when the trip is done, the DMT is flushed out of your system
like Vitamin B.
The trip is very
short.
Only about 15 minutes.
Of course, there is a chance
that DMT could trigger latent schizophrenia, but then again, so can any
drug. Even alcohol could potentially trigger latent
schizophrenia.
And even thinking that you might be schizophrenic can trigger latent
schizophrenia.
So could just walking down
the street, alone, thinking about your life.
Pretty much, no matter who
you are, on any given day, you're probably doing something that could
trigger
latent schizophrenia.
Also:
DMT trips are all remarkably
similar. And any variations in the trip are usually the result of
differing sets of personal metaphorical structures. Basically, as
I understand it, the way you experience the trip is shaped by the
metaphors--
the language-- you commonly use to describe yourself and your
relationships
to the world.
So, everyone experiences
mostly the same thing. But personalities and cultures modify
events
somewhat.
And also, the strength of
the trip depends, of course, on the dose of DMT. But the length
is
always only about 15 minutes, and then the DMT is flushed out.
What happened to Adrian,
more or less, or at least what I remember of what Adrian told me:
"Pan" gave Adrian the
scrapings,
and then Adrian smoked the scrapings.
Three big deep puffs, and
hold it.
And then the world gets
wavy, like a flashback sequence on a cheesy old sitcom.
And he feels like he's in
the centre of the universe.
And something's at the
periphery
of his vision. Some sort of "woman" made out of silver spinning
particles
of light. But "she's" always on the periphery, at the edges,
watching
everything, impassive but caring.
And something-- this
"woman,"
maybe?-- is giving him a non-invasive physical. It's checking out
his systems, making sure everything is in working order, tuning up his
body and mind, scanning every particle, cell, iota of his being.
And making sure he's okay, and fixing what needs to be fixed.
And he's both on the beach,
and in some kind of amphitheatre. He compares the experience to
being
in the Olympics. Other people on DMT have also found themselves
in
some sort of large room. Some people compare this room-- or other
space of some sort-- to a spaceship, or a church, or a computer
room.
With Adrian, because his personal metaphors seem to be, on a deep
level,
sports-centred, he places himself in the middle of a sporting
event.
The most important sporting event, in fact.
You don't just go to some
banal place on DMT, wherever you "go" is always, or seems to always be,
deeply significant in either a cultural, technological, or spiritual
way.
Again, depending on your own set of personal metaphors.
And, someone is talking
about stuff, but Adrian can't tell if what he's hearing is coming from
within himself or if it's a group of hippies on the beach. It's
probably
a combination of both. Information transfer, or a sense of
information
transfer is also a common theme in DMT trips, as with other
psychedelics,
but with DMT the sense of data is apparently somehow stronger, more
significant.
And he finds himself
"outside"
of "time"-- like he's passed into another dimension and the eyes of the
universe are on him, and inside him, running through him, becoming him
and yet not him. And the "woman" is still there. On the
margins,
watching.
And he's also inside of
a "spaceship" now. And he gets another non-invasive
physical.
It's almost like this "thing" that's monitoring his functioning wants
to
study him, and know him inside and out. But it also wants to give
something back because there's now a deeper sense of information
exchange,
but it's on a level that's somehow outside of time, space, and also his
mind-- while being within all these things as well. It's as if
he's
inside and outside of his body at the same time, like he's drifting
through
parallel universes.
And then there's an enormous
sense of well being. And a feeling of having language running
through
his soul.
It is almost as if (to use
a computer metaphor) he's interacting with his own programming
language,
like he's opened a programming window on his desktop and is
experiencing
his own machine code as it streams through his mind.
And so his mind is bent
back onto itself, and he's witnessing the data that makes up his
identity,
as it make up his identity-- but also as it (because he's a
subject
experiencing himself) is filtered through the identity that's watching
itself-- all the while abstracting this experience ot of himself and
attributing
it to an outside entity, because that's the only way he can really
process
it. We tend to personify.
And he slips back into
"this"
time and space, and, back on the beach and still in an amphitheatre,
the
world returns as the universe stabilizes and he finds himself back in
reality.
Amphitheatre gone,
everything's
normal.
It's only been 15 minutes,
and the trip is over.
No hangover. No
aftereffects.
Flushed clean.
Brian's French trip: (It's better to show, not tell.)
Assignment #1
Si on trouve le grande amour
de sa vie, on peux surmonter beaucoup des problèmes. Mais,
ci deux amoureuses est personnes des cultures différentes, ils
ont
plus de problèmes que les autres. Par example, si les
amants
parlent différents langues, chaque amant doit apprendre la
langue
de l'autre. Un autre problème peut être les
différances
en leurs religions. Si ils ont en différents croyances en
Dieu, quelqu'un doit compromettre ou changer son religion.
Finalement,
si les amants décident se marier, et fonder une famille, il faut
considérer comment éléver des enfants.
Quelle
héritage est-ce que les enfants recevraient, l'heritage de leur
mère ou de leur père? Donc, il y a beaucoup des
problèmes,
que les amoureuses doivent surmontre, ces ont été juste
un
peu.
Assignment #2
Ma vie est relativement
régulier et ordinaire, mais je trouve beaucoup de choses
à
faire.
Chaque jour de la semaine
je me réveille à 6:30, en colère et très
fatigué.
Alors, je prende une douche. Aprés la douche, je
m’habille,
mange des flocons de céréales, et je me brosse les
dents.
Alors, je conduis à l’université et j’étude le
français.
Aprés le course de français, j’essaye travailler à
ma thèse.
Ma thèse est une
analyse de réalité virtuelle dans le science-fiction
cyberpunk
et l’animation japonaise et aussi les théories postmodernes dans
Simulacres et simulation par Jean Baudrillard.
Le soir, je lis un roman
pour relaxer, écoute du musique, ou regarde la
télé.
Aussi, je fais mes devoirs, et le étude français.
Ceci
est pourquoi je suis fatigué.
Le lundi, le mercredi, et
le vendredi je pass avec ma amie Kimberley. Nous souvent
déjeunons
avant que je la conduis à son travail.
Le week-end je dors.
Aussi, le dimanche, je visite mes parents et mange le dîner avec
eux. Parfois, je travaille à la thèse au week-end--
mais rarement.
Et cela est ma semaine.
Assignment #3
Une personne qui est très
importante à moi est l'écrivain Américain William
S. Burroughs.
Burroughs avait né le 5
février 1914 et il est mort le 2 août 1997. Certains
des romans que Burroughs a écrit incluent Naked Lunch (Festin
nu), The Ticket That Exploded (Le ticket qui explosa),
Cities
Of The Red Night (Les cités de la nuit écarlate),
et Junky (Junky). Burroughs a aussi
co-écrit
la comédie musicale The Black Rider avec Tom Waits et
Robert
Wilson. The Black Rider récemment est joué
à
Saskatoon. C'était la meilleure pièce de
théatre
que j'ai vu. Mais, peut-être, je suis facile à
contendre.
L'écrits de Burroughs
sont amusants, étranges, en colères, et oniriquess (ou
peut-être
cauchemardesques), simultanément personnels et universels.
L'humour de Burroughs est noir parce que il voyait l'hypocrisie de la
vie
moderne comme personne d'autre. Si Burroughs vivait aujourd'hui,
ses mots couperaient George Bush dans les petits rubans. Certains
gens ont dit que Burroughs, comme une satiriste, est un autant
d'écrivain
que Johnathan Swift.
Il était aussi une
surréaliste:
certaines de ces écritures sont collages créés par
combiner les écritures d'autres gens avec son mots.
L'effet
est comme avoir votre chat s'asseoir sur la télécommande
à votre télé. Burroughs appelle cette
tecnique
d'écreture les "cut-ups", et parfois ils ont produits des
écritures
très drôles-- même si occasionment l'écriture
n'a pas de sens linéaire.
Pendant dans sa carrière,
Burroughs a associé avec les écrivains "Beat," en
particulère
Allen Ginsberg et Jack Kerouac. Burroughs est trop
différent
un écrivain de Ginsberg pour moi faire une comparaison entre
eux.
Mais, Burroughs est le meilleur écrivain que Kerouac, à
mon
avis humble. Chaque génération prétendre
à
Burroughs pour son propre: premier les "Beats;" prochain, au 1970s, les
"Punks" l'ont prétendu; et dans les 80s et 90s les
postmodernistes
ont dit il leur a appartenu.
La première fois j'ai
lû
William Burroughs, j'étais dans le l'école
secondaire.
Quand j'ai lû Le ticket qui explosa (un roman "cut-up")
il
ne resemblait aucun livre j'avais déja lû. J'ai
pensé:
"Hou la! Est-ceci que vous
pouvez faire avec un roman?"
Ma lecture de ce roman
était
un des facteurs principaux dans mon décision à devenir
écrivain.
Est-il Burroughs mon
écrivain
préféré? Pour moi à dire absolument
"oui"
serait difficile, mais Burroughs est certainement un de mes favoris.
This is the trip that's never flushed clean.
(Thanks to Adrian Pocobelli for this idea-- sort of.)
30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003
-- INFINITY.