echo

I just have a problem with the idea that by doing a copious amount of drugs, one is immediately more enlightened than the person who hasn't. I think that mind-altering, mind-bending and mind-enhancing drugs can be useful tools (aside from just being fun), but that enlightenment is something that one works towards, and not something that one has bestowed upon one. As an analogy, it's like saying that because I spend a lot of time daydreaming, I'm more creative than other people. That may be true, but unless I take the creative impulses contained in those daydreams and apply them to something -- words, ink, paint, clay, wood, marble, dirt, what have you -- I haven't actually CREATED anything. I can take a handful of pills, sit back and marvel at the wonders of the universe, but unless I take those insights and codify them into something that makes sense when I'm sober, then what was the point? If I'm a self-centered, egotistical, judgmental prick when I'm not on drugs, then what's the point? If the experience doesn't change my waking self, then what's the point? More than a few problems arise when you start saying, "I like myself better when I drink/smoke/pop/drop/snort/stick a needle in my arm." The fact is, I've met plenty of people when they've been in altered states, and they can be just as unpleasant to be around as they are when they're unaltered.

Of course, I seem to be in the minority on this.