porkstock
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 773
on thursday night we hiked to the spot with all of our stuff and set up camp.
on friday morning while gathering more firewood, i must have stepped in a bee/wasp nest, because i got stung four times and had to run through the creek to escape. after i thought i was safe, i got stung in the upper thigh by one that had went up my shorts! it wasn't a huge deal, but it made my left hand (2 stings) hurt and not function 100% correctly for the duration of the trip.
we went for a little hike downstream (the opposite direction that we normally hike) and found a nice little swimming hole.
at about 1:50 pm, we decided to dose. my brother took ~2.5 hits, and i took the rest of what i had, ~3 and a half. these were the hits that were simply torn from a sheet, so they were hard to measure, but my previous largest dose of these was 2 small hits, which resulted in pretty strong trips, one at a built to spill concert, and one at my apt. and the park.
then we started hiking upstream while waiting for it to kick in. that happened pretty quickly, and soon we were laying down on rocks in the middle of the creek...tripping pretty hard. we hiked through a gorge with an enormous wall of rocks containing about a million shades of brown and gray. that wall is always amazing to look at, but especially when you're tripping haha.
then we made it to the small waterfalls and spent a couple hours there. we stuck our heads under the falls so that we were completely behind them. that was like entering a different dimension and we spent a good deal of time entertaining ourselves with this and laughing uncontrollably.
then we laid on the rocks and watched the super tiny fish in the water, and the water-skimming bugs on top of it. this seemed like the interface of two separate worlds, and my brother and i observing them was like a third. i started thinking about what if there was a "fourth level" - someone or something observing our actions without us being aware of it?
these fish seemed to be just scavenging for food, relentlessly swimming against the current to feed off of the tiny fern-like plants in the water. it was like i could feel that their only mission was to eat and to reproduce. it was like i was observing the essence of life or the pulse of this planet or something. as humans, we lead complicated lives with lots of stuff going on, and most of us would probably think of ourselves as a few steps above simply creatures like these fish...but are we really any different from them? maybe we are simply feeding and reproducing too, with a bunch of insignificant details to fill in the gaps.
it also seemed like i was observing evolution at work. it seemed like every so often, one of those fish would "learn" that it could break through the barrier of these two separate worlds, and eat a bug from on top of the surface of the water. i imagined that this would afford that fish a greater food supply and therefore a competitive advantage. i imagined nature selecting these type of fish to reproduce and pass on their genes. overall, i was feeling a strong sense of the never-ending "pulse of life" or something like that, and it was quite a beautiful thing to contemplate.
eventually we made our way back to the campsite and spent some time being indecisive. should we change our wet clothes? should we hike back downstream to the swimming spot? we decided to just sit around and wait til it was time to start a fire and start cooking dinner (teriyaki-marinated steaks on the rill, and fire-roasted sweet potatoes, peppers, onions and mushrooms).
we spent the rest of the night feeding the fire, listening to music and talking.
this song was particularly trippy while lying in the tent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3T8NtbwME
later in the night we got to talking about how the sheer length of time would make it unlikely for intelligent life to exist elsewhere in the universe at the same time as humans. looking at the gorge earlier, which must have taken millions of years to carve out, got me thinking about the immense time span of the universe. the earth is only about 4 billion years old, and there are planets out there that are about twice as old! what if they have had twice as long to evolve complex, intelligent lifeforms? i "concluded" that since my primate brain is too limited to even think about the time scale involved in carving out a gorge through the action of running water, that i have NO hope of comprehending what billions of years mean....and for that reason, i think that the universe has or will contain MUCH intelligent life, but that we may never cross paths with them, because we might all exist for only a short blip in the overall time of the universe.
i've read that there are about 1,000 stars in the universe for every grain of sand on earth! that means that there is roughly 1 "earth-like" plant for every single grain of sand on earth. with those kinds of numbers, how can there NOT be other intelligent life out there somewhere?
this was my 5th summer in a row of camping at this spot. it was a great time, a great trip, great to see my brother who lives far away, and i can't wait to hopefully do it again next year.
on friday morning while gathering more firewood, i must have stepped in a bee/wasp nest, because i got stung four times and had to run through the creek to escape. after i thought i was safe, i got stung in the upper thigh by one that had went up my shorts! it wasn't a huge deal, but it made my left hand (2 stings) hurt and not function 100% correctly for the duration of the trip.
we went for a little hike downstream (the opposite direction that we normally hike) and found a nice little swimming hole.
at about 1:50 pm, we decided to dose. my brother took ~2.5 hits, and i took the rest of what i had, ~3 and a half. these were the hits that were simply torn from a sheet, so they were hard to measure, but my previous largest dose of these was 2 small hits, which resulted in pretty strong trips, one at a built to spill concert, and one at my apt. and the park.
then we started hiking upstream while waiting for it to kick in. that happened pretty quickly, and soon we were laying down on rocks in the middle of the creek...tripping pretty hard. we hiked through a gorge with an enormous wall of rocks containing about a million shades of brown and gray. that wall is always amazing to look at, but especially when you're tripping haha.
then we made it to the small waterfalls and spent a couple hours there. we stuck our heads under the falls so that we were completely behind them. that was like entering a different dimension and we spent a good deal of time entertaining ourselves with this and laughing uncontrollably.
then we laid on the rocks and watched the super tiny fish in the water, and the water-skimming bugs on top of it. this seemed like the interface of two separate worlds, and my brother and i observing them was like a third. i started thinking about what if there was a "fourth level" - someone or something observing our actions without us being aware of it?
these fish seemed to be just scavenging for food, relentlessly swimming against the current to feed off of the tiny fern-like plants in the water. it was like i could feel that their only mission was to eat and to reproduce. it was like i was observing the essence of life or the pulse of this planet or something. as humans, we lead complicated lives with lots of stuff going on, and most of us would probably think of ourselves as a few steps above simply creatures like these fish...but are we really any different from them? maybe we are simply feeding and reproducing too, with a bunch of insignificant details to fill in the gaps.
it also seemed like i was observing evolution at work. it seemed like every so often, one of those fish would "learn" that it could break through the barrier of these two separate worlds, and eat a bug from on top of the surface of the water. i imagined that this would afford that fish a greater food supply and therefore a competitive advantage. i imagined nature selecting these type of fish to reproduce and pass on their genes. overall, i was feeling a strong sense of the never-ending "pulse of life" or something like that, and it was quite a beautiful thing to contemplate.
eventually we made our way back to the campsite and spent some time being indecisive. should we change our wet clothes? should we hike back downstream to the swimming spot? we decided to just sit around and wait til it was time to start a fire and start cooking dinner (teriyaki-marinated steaks on the rill, and fire-roasted sweet potatoes, peppers, onions and mushrooms).
we spent the rest of the night feeding the fire, listening to music and talking.
this song was particularly trippy while lying in the tent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3T8NtbwME
later in the night we got to talking about how the sheer length of time would make it unlikely for intelligent life to exist elsewhere in the universe at the same time as humans. looking at the gorge earlier, which must have taken millions of years to carve out, got me thinking about the immense time span of the universe. the earth is only about 4 billion years old, and there are planets out there that are about twice as old! what if they have had twice as long to evolve complex, intelligent lifeforms? i "concluded" that since my primate brain is too limited to even think about the time scale involved in carving out a gorge through the action of running water, that i have NO hope of comprehending what billions of years mean....and for that reason, i think that the universe has or will contain MUCH intelligent life, but that we may never cross paths with them, because we might all exist for only a short blip in the overall time of the universe.
i've read that there are about 1,000 stars in the universe for every grain of sand on earth! that means that there is roughly 1 "earth-like" plant for every single grain of sand on earth. with those kinds of numbers, how can there NOT be other intelligent life out there somewhere?
this was my 5th summer in a row of camping at this spot. it was a great time, a great trip, great to see my brother who lives far away, and i can't wait to hopefully do it again next year.
!