Smart
I wouldn't say I was particularly clever academically, but probably the most academically trained in my current living situation. But who says that's smart? Smarts come from life, taking things as they come, being able to deal with your day to day life without breaking down at the futility of it all. But hey, academia helps (if only because University life is just another couple of years of living in a sheltered environment. Don't want to get up? That's fine, your lecturers don't care. Don't need to worry about the money you'll lose today, you don't get paid. You got given/lent a lump sum a while ago, spent most of it on frivolous things and now have to scrape by. But the longer you spend in bed, the less meals you have to eat).
I've digressed slightly. Already. A point I'd like to make is - you can be as clever as you want academically, but if you don't know what the hell's going on in your life, you're still a moron.
Fear
Drugs have given me a healthy dose of paranoia (it's difficult to say what's healthy when it comes to fear, but a small background desire to question what's going on certainly can't hurt. Can it? CAN IT! Ahem), but that paranoia can lead to nasty, nasty experiences. Realisations of the pain everyone around you feels because of money while you're in a high paid computer job for an intrinsically evil company on a year out from a degree and magic mushrooms don't mix particularly well (breathe). The most annoying thing about realisations like those are that even though you can't think about anything else sometimes, there's nothing that can be done. Society marches on like a funeral dirge towards a bloody end, with the few outsiders looking on and screaming for people to change their direction. Not going to happen. Not in your lifetime, not in the lifetime of your 2.4 children.
Hate
Theories on psychadelics collapsing mental barriers are well documented, but some barriers are there for your own protection, and the more people analyse and study themselves from an outside perspective, the more they may realise that they don't like themselves too much. And culture doesn't give much leeway for change ("You are free to do what we tell you!"), so you can wind up feeling trapped, alone and that nothing's worth doing because you're just a drop in an infinite ocean of shit.
And then you'd be right. Take pride in being right, because when the pride fades, all that's left is the ocean.
Epilogue
I love magic mushrooms. My bad trip was probably about the fourth or fifth time I'd taken them, and the first in these living arrangements (fourteen people aged nineteen to twenty-one spread across three terraced houses in a road of four). Since then most of my trips were alright, but never as good as they were before (there are two buts now). But, the last time I took them I was really drunk already, and had spent an earlier part of the evening running away from a car I can't remember getting into. So, I was quite happy to still be alive, and I think that helped. This rekindled my faith in them. But! Two days ago, one of my friends had exactly the same sort of bad trip I did, and it brought back unpleasant memories. I'm not sure if I want them again. I'll probably end up taking them, and then I'll just have to take it as it comes. If it's good, it's good, if it's bad, so what? It'll be over eventually.
The only advice I'd give someone who's thinking about getting deeply embroiled in drugs culture would be this - You can read, you can listen, you can absorb all you want, but you'll never know what you're getting into until you're there. Once there, you might not like it. But hey, at least you're keeping it real. Whatever the hell that means.
Addendum
I've been smoking weed regularly for about three and a half years now. There have been ups, downs, turn arounds and fall downs. I'm paranoid about my dependency, but not paranoid enough to do anything about it. I cut down a lot a few months ago, and as a result I'm fitter, happier, more productive. No, that's a lie - I feel numb. Most times I want a joint, I'll roll a cigarette. It helps, but it doesn't help my lungs. Weed is addictive, if only because it becomes a habit. You buy, you get wasted, you run out, you buy, the cycle continues onwards forever. It takes a huge shake-up to get you to realise something's not quite right if you have to get stoned before facing anyone.
Well, that node didn't really go anywhere. See kids? Drugs make you lose all
coherant thought. I don't even think I was
high when I wrote this.
Aye, there's the rub.