An early morning rain falls outside the Internet Cafe. The place is near
empty. I imagine all the Good people must be in church now, prostrating
themselves before some unseen God in hopes that their sins, real or
imagined, be forgiven. But the rain has to fall. So while I sit here sipping
coffee and smoking cigarettes and henpecking the keys, Wanda the waitress
fills my cup silently, never letting it empty yet never topping it off;
drawn by some manner of mine I myself am not even aware of... a lift of a
brow, the way I hold my mouth, or maybe the play of my hands changing as my
cup nears the bottom... who can say? I asked her once how she does it but
she lifted her eyes and just smiled and walked away in silence. She doesn't
know either, I guess.
I take this quiet time to answer posts from Ryan and Marco.
----Original Message Follows----
Hello,
My name is Ryan Terry
I am new to the group
my message is to Cory
Cory,
I understand what you are saying but I think that Glenn has a point.
also, remember that it is immoral for the Parent(society) to repress the
child(intellect) but it is also immoral for the child to kill the parent.
people like Dick Rigel (Glenn) play an important part in the balance of
life.
Society is there to control biology, correct?
well to some people the use of drugs could be classified as biological
drugs and alcohol alter our biology and chemistry
remember if biology destroys society according to the MOQ this would be
immoral.
So all that Glenn was saying was that we need to control our biological
urges to resist the overuse of a drugs and the destruction of society
I am not saying that drugs are altogether bad
they have biological quality
I think that the dynamic quality that Pirsig talked about when he took
peyote had nothing to do with the drug but a feeling that was already
embedded in his subconscious.
-------------------
Hello Ryan
Nice to meet you. I think this is a very intriguing point you make here.
Pirsig seems to agree in that he speculates peyote may uncover a hidden
'reality'. One important point that is not addressed in Lila is that only
under optimal doses of LSD do spiders spin more perfect webs. When very
large doses are administered their webs become dishevelled. One part of the
peyote ceremony is not ingesting large quantities at one time but over
several hours, hopefully building to a crescendo. Social constraints are
built right in.
Marco wrote:
Cory.
>The intent of the peyote ceremony is to open up the doors of
>perception; a dynamic expansion of the static intellect. The intent of the
>barroom is forgetfulness; a closing of the doors of perception and a
regress
>into biological patterns. Remember Phaedrus's foggy memory the morning
>after.
Marco:
IMHO the problem of barroom and alcohol use is that a lot of people have
lost the ceremonial aspect of alcohol. Wine (or beer) always had the
function to facilitate the "convivial" (Latin: live together). It's an
important ingredient in dinners with friends, as helps you to abandon a lot
of social inhibition and increases the conversation. But when you drink
alone in a barroom a "drop" of whisky you abandon at all the ceremonial
and you are risking to fall in alcoholism.
So I can't compare the Peyote ceremony with barroom: outside of ceremonies
the use of Peyote (or it's synthetic equivalent, LSD) is stupid, useless and
dangerous. Just like it's stupid useless and dangerous the use of alcohol
without a solid background of western static convivial ceremonies.
Cory:
Your points are well made. I was forgetting to mention the social
implications which are just as important as biological and intellectual
implications. Still, I believe we can compare the barroom experience with
the peyote ceremony as they are both social rituals. A person does not go to
a barroom to drink alone, at least not in this old hillbilly's experience.
And I have seen the inside of a barroom or two. If they do, they don't
belong there.
Belonging. That's what it all boils down to, isn't it? Don't we all seek to
belong to something? Something that is eternal and good and loving? No
matter how temporal, hateful and uncaring we ourselves might feel at times?
I think so. Convivial: pertaining to a feast - especially a drinking feast;
festive; jovial. Living together. Belonging.
Thank you all for your thoughts.
Cory
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:20 BST