Sure you would. In fact, it's probably what any rational person would think a septuagenerian would be, me included. And in terms of experience, that's exactly what I am. But I have been reading everything I could get my hands on regarding psychotropics for the last 40 years.
Greetings all,
This is my introduction, I'm grateful for the opportunity to join this group.
I'm 73 and have stage IVc Oropharyngeal cancer. At the moment, that means I have around < 3.5 years of life remaining, according to the statistics. Five year survival rate for Stage IV is 30%; for Stage IVc it's Zero. That clock starts from the diagnosis in July, 2011.
Of course, no one gets out of here alive in any event...
That's not a problem with me, many years ago I faced a man with a gun in his hand and the intent to murder me in his mind. He came very close, putting a bullet through my Iliac Artery (I bled out on the scene,) one in L3 (3rd lumbar vertebra) and two through the right leg (one of which went through the sciatic nerve, taking my right foot permanently off-line.)
None of that is a problem either, in fact, it prepared me for the rest of my life as it gave me the experience of facing death and finding it no big deal.
NARC, NARC, Who's there…?
At the time, I was an undercover agent of BNDD (which is now DEA), and this all happened in Vietnam in 1967. I got medevaced to the states, got my temp colostomy closed and relearned to walk, and was back in Vietnam in about 12 weeks. I remained in Vietnam for nearly 4 years after that.
For the record, I have concluded that the entire "great roar on some drugs" is not one of the powers delegated by the constitution to any branch of government, and as a result, I do not consider myself (or anyone else) bound by laws against (some) drugs.
Yeah, I know. Reality does bite sometimes. Like now. Pity, but there it is.
NARC NO MORE!
Returning to the US and leaving "Law Enforcement" forever, I realized that, although I had been involved in extreme measures in the name of eliminating the growing Heroin problem affecting the US Troops, I really knew nothing about drugs beyond the fact that everything I had been told by authority was totally bullshit. That, and I could take a test kit, test a substance and determine if it was H or not, and if so, how pure it was. So on my return from VN and departure from BNDD, I started buying books and educating myself.
Richard Alpert's book, "Remember, Be Here Now" was an eye-opener, and it got me interested in meditation as a means of accessing the same state as psychedelics, but "without the noise." That got me into buddhism (small b) and Zen and Tao, and the path that has led me here, now.
My countless attempts over the last nearly 40 years to still the internal dialog (monolog?) have failed, I cannot get beyond the ego in it's protective role. Ergo, I have decided to pursue an ethnogenic path to bypass the ego. Mushrooms seem to be the most accessible agent for me, everything carries an unacceptable risk of unhappy contact with my one-time employer. So the point in my being here is that I want to learn as much as I can about psychotropic substances so that I can produce what I need for my assault on the ego barrier.
I'd also like to learn enough to determine whether growing shrooms or buying plant materials from the net and extracting the active ingredients would be the best path for me.
Think about it, when one is my age, access to certain substances is somewhat restricted by local custom, if youth distrusts folks over 30, how do you think they react to a septuagenerian . As a result of this complication, I have never experienced any psychedelic drugs, in fact my entire drug experience is morphine (from getting shot), cannabis (weed and hash) and alcohol.
I'd like to expand on the experience of getting shot. It happened early in the morning following a night of very heavy drinking. We had been drinking at the NCO club of the Special Forces Mike Force camp just outside Pleiku Air Force Base and had to catch a truck taking the Hootch Maids back to Pleiku city, about 15 miles away, hoping we didn't get stopped by the VC on the way.
We arrived in the city and unloaded from the truck at about 0300. I was renting a room at a whore house about 3 doors to the right, and he and another guy were renting a small Villa (house not connected to another house by a common wall) 2 doors to the left.
He invited me in to have a drink to show that there were no lingering bad feelings over a a minor scuffle we'd had earlier in the evening. Since I had been cultivating him for a couple of weeks as an entree to the black market, I agreed. Bad move. (Imagine that, despite having a snoot full of booze, I still did something stupid!)
We entered his house into a small hallway, about 6' by 12' with a bathroom at the end opposite the front door, with a bedroom on either side opening into the hall at the back.
He asked me what I wanted to drink; I told him I'd have a Scotch and water as soon as I made some room, and then stepped into the bathroom to make some. When I emerged from the john, he was waiting between me and the door; but rather than the drink I was expecting, he was holding a Browning .32 Auto in his hand and wearing a look of pure hatred.
All the cliches are true. The. 32 cal hole in the end of that barrel pointed at me was so huge that I expected a train to come roaring out any second. I was literally petrified with terror because there was no possible escape route and he was just 6 feet away.
He sneered, "You made a bad mistake when you fu**ed with me earlier this evening; but you made a fatal mistake when you walked into my house because you're going to get your's right now!" Bang! He fired the first shot, and missed.
That only intensified my terror, there was no doubt he was serious. He did intend to kill me, he had the means to, and was attempting to, right now!
Then, at the peak of my terror, I had a moment of Satori!
I realized, in the buddhist sense of the term, that I had nothing to fear because I was a dead man; and dead men have nothing to fear. They have no bills to pay, no bosses or wives to satisfy; and nothing on earth can hurt a dead man.
I was 28 at the time, and those fears had dominated my life to that moment; but not beyond that moment. At that moment, that moment of Satori, the rush of relief at the lifting of the weight of Fear was more intense than an orgasm!
That moment has remained "this" moment ever since. Those who know me well understand when I say that that of all the lucky things that have happened to me in my life, I am most grateful, most appreciative of getting shot.
The recovery from the wounds was truly horrific, almost every fold of intestine was hit, liver and spleen; spine took a direct hit and the bullet ricocheted around to lodge in the rear of L3 taking out nerve ends (which do not regenerate) to the muscles in the hip girdle responsible for rotation on the right side.
But the most horrific pain passes. Life goes on. I also got that every emotion is nothing but a mind-state. Zen later helped me understand this, but the moment of Satori just before getting shot opened me when it dispelled my fear forever.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not enlightened (beyond the fact that we are all so, but most of us don't realize it. (that word again) But I am open. And if a mind-state is, it is my mind-state. Being my mind-state, I can simply change it. I choose to be happy in life, and I am. But I digress.
As I read this back to myself, I can't help but think "that guy is full of himself" and yet, I can't seem to find another way of expressing myself, so there you have it.
Well, that's me, nice to be here.
Greetings all,
This is my introduction, I'm grateful for the opportunity to join this group.
I'm 73 and have stage IVc Oropharyngeal cancer. At the moment, that means I have around < 3.5 years of life remaining, according to the statistics. Five year survival rate for Stage IV is 30%; for Stage IVc it's Zero. That clock starts from the diagnosis in July, 2011.
Of course, no one gets out of here alive in any event...
That's not a problem with me, many years ago I faced a man with a gun in his hand and the intent to murder me in his mind. He came very close, putting a bullet through my Iliac Artery (I bled out on the scene,) one in L3 (3rd lumbar vertebra) and two through the right leg (one of which went through the sciatic nerve, taking my right foot permanently off-line.)
None of that is a problem either, in fact, it prepared me for the rest of my life as it gave me the experience of facing death and finding it no big deal.
NARC, NARC, Who's there…?
At the time, I was an undercover agent of BNDD (which is now DEA), and this all happened in Vietnam in 1967. I got medevaced to the states, got my temp colostomy closed and relearned to walk, and was back in Vietnam in about 12 weeks. I remained in Vietnam for nearly 4 years after that.
For the record, I have concluded that the entire "great roar on some drugs" is not one of the powers delegated by the constitution to any branch of government, and as a result, I do not consider myself (or anyone else) bound by laws against (some) drugs.
Yeah, I know. Reality does bite sometimes. Like now. Pity, but there it is.
NARC NO MORE!
Returning to the US and leaving "Law Enforcement" forever, I realized that, although I had been involved in extreme measures in the name of eliminating the growing Heroin problem affecting the US Troops, I really knew nothing about drugs beyond the fact that everything I had been told by authority was totally bullshit. That, and I could take a test kit, test a substance and determine if it was H or not, and if so, how pure it was. So on my return from VN and departure from BNDD, I started buying books and educating myself.
Richard Alpert's book, "Remember, Be Here Now" was an eye-opener, and it got me interested in meditation as a means of accessing the same state as psychedelics, but "without the noise." That got me into buddhism (small b) and Zen and Tao, and the path that has led me here, now.
My countless attempts over the last nearly 40 years to still the internal dialog (monolog?) have failed, I cannot get beyond the ego in it's protective role. Ergo, I have decided to pursue an ethnogenic path to bypass the ego. Mushrooms seem to be the most accessible agent for me, everything carries an unacceptable risk of unhappy contact with my one-time employer. So the point in my being here is that I want to learn as much as I can about psychotropic substances so that I can produce what I need for my assault on the ego barrier.
I'd also like to learn enough to determine whether growing shrooms or buying plant materials from the net and extracting the active ingredients would be the best path for me.
Think about it, when one is my age, access to certain substances is somewhat restricted by local custom, if youth distrusts folks over 30, how do you think they react to a septuagenerian . As a result of this complication, I have never experienced any psychedelic drugs, in fact my entire drug experience is morphine (from getting shot), cannabis (weed and hash) and alcohol.
I'd like to expand on the experience of getting shot. It happened early in the morning following a night of very heavy drinking. We had been drinking at the NCO club of the Special Forces Mike Force camp just outside Pleiku Air Force Base and had to catch a truck taking the Hootch Maids back to Pleiku city, about 15 miles away, hoping we didn't get stopped by the VC on the way.
We arrived in the city and unloaded from the truck at about 0300. I was renting a room at a whore house about 3 doors to the right, and he and another guy were renting a small Villa (house not connected to another house by a common wall) 2 doors to the left.
He invited me in to have a drink to show that there were no lingering bad feelings over a a minor scuffle we'd had earlier in the evening. Since I had been cultivating him for a couple of weeks as an entree to the black market, I agreed. Bad move. (Imagine that, despite having a snoot full of booze, I still did something stupid!)
We entered his house into a small hallway, about 6' by 12' with a bathroom at the end opposite the front door, with a bedroom on either side opening into the hall at the back.
He asked me what I wanted to drink; I told him I'd have a Scotch and water as soon as I made some room, and then stepped into the bathroom to make some. When I emerged from the john, he was waiting between me and the door; but rather than the drink I was expecting, he was holding a Browning .32 Auto in his hand and wearing a look of pure hatred.
All the cliches are true. The. 32 cal hole in the end of that barrel pointed at me was so huge that I expected a train to come roaring out any second. I was literally petrified with terror because there was no possible escape route and he was just 6 feet away.
He sneered, "You made a bad mistake when you fu**ed with me earlier this evening; but you made a fatal mistake when you walked into my house because you're going to get your's right now!" Bang! He fired the first shot, and missed.
That only intensified my terror, there was no doubt he was serious. He did intend to kill me, he had the means to, and was attempting to, right now!
Then, at the peak of my terror, I had a moment of Satori!
I realized, in the buddhist sense of the term, that I had nothing to fear because I was a dead man; and dead men have nothing to fear. They have no bills to pay, no bosses or wives to satisfy; and nothing on earth can hurt a dead man.
I was 28 at the time, and those fears had dominated my life to that moment; but not beyond that moment. At that moment, that moment of Satori, the rush of relief at the lifting of the weight of Fear was more intense than an orgasm!
That moment has remained "this" moment ever since. Those who know me well understand when I say that that of all the lucky things that have happened to me in my life, I am most grateful, most appreciative of getting shot.
The recovery from the wounds was truly horrific, almost every fold of intestine was hit, liver and spleen; spine took a direct hit and the bullet ricocheted around to lodge in the rear of L3 taking out nerve ends (which do not regenerate) to the muscles in the hip girdle responsible for rotation on the right side.
But the most horrific pain passes. Life goes on. I also got that every emotion is nothing but a mind-state. Zen later helped me understand this, but the moment of Satori just before getting shot opened me when it dispelled my fear forever.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not enlightened (beyond the fact that we are all so, but most of us don't realize it. (that word again) But I am open. And if a mind-state is, it is my mind-state. Being my mind-state, I can simply change it. I choose to be happy in life, and I am. But I digress.
As I read this back to myself, I can't help but think "that guy is full of himself" and yet, I can't seem to find another way of expressing myself, so there you have it.
Well, that's me, nice to be here.
