(no subject)
“It goes as far as you want to go with it.” The words labor on the edge of my brain as I stare at the intricacies of the wall. I say nothing. I know that I will not be able to fully explain myself here. I feel much of the self-created anxiety but I am not necessarily experiencing things in a different, hyper-real context. The wood floors want to breathe but they are clearly not alive.
What I want to explain to my room of friends, what I suddenly understand, is that making an experience extraordinary is simply a string of actions. It seems pretty simple; the chemicals in your brain will react accordingly to the things and people you put around you, the things you do and feel, and the way you interact with your environment. Each moment is a chance to take the experience further.
Consider those people in high school, who after drinking one or two beers acted ridiculously uninhibited. My mind told me that they were just playing the part, being terrible actors. Now I think that maybe their actions were without social intent. Perhaps they were just taking it where they imagined it would bring them. Maybe they really did completely lose inhibition, because that’s exactly where they put themselves. They expected certain things from the drug, and the chemicals in their mind bridged the gap between the effects of the drug and the expected or intended outcome. Alcohol was just one part of the overall experience that allowed them to get loose. They made other choices besides drinking that put them in that mindset, from where they physically stood to who they surrounded themselves with.
Do drugs put you one step ahead of the fact or one step behind it? Its flooring to stand outside of daily life and at the same time live within it, and for the first time live life before your subconscious takes time to filter existence. Drugs take people where they want to go - or rather, people take the drug with them to where they want to be. There is an expectation, an intended outcome, there that is fulfilled; the junkie or alcoholic finds himself constantly satiated yet discontent.
I allow the wood floors to breathe. I notice the brown and gray grain of the wood, along with all of its elegant imperfections. Flowing as freely as I can imagine, the wood stands still to the rest of the room. My mind suddenly comprehends the material as an organic and changing substance. The tree is dead, but its matter continues to transform.
I now understand why we surround ourselves with dead trees in the most urban and synthetic environments: in order to reintroduce life back into our lives.The irony is easy to appreciate. In the same instant, I realize that wood is more beautiful and perfect than anything man has ever created - nothing we make can compete with the effect.
In realizing this, the significance of the moment lay inherit. Each second is a chance to take knowledge and experience further. But only if you allow it.
The next logical step is to apply the model of singular experience to life in general. It seems so easy to grasp, but impossible to live out. Life can go as far as you want to go with it, just like two beers can get you drunk. Life goes exactly where you expect or imagine. It’s just a matter of letting yourself visualize it.
Perhaps the reason you never saw wood move as though it were alive is because you never allowed yourself to. Perhaps the reason I’ve never truly found happiness is because I never permitted myself to see life that way. The reason I am completely broke is because I never really allowed myself to be anything else. Making life extraordinary and magical is simply a string of actions, though choosing the right sequence seems insurmountably difficult.