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Artificial happiness

Space_dolphin

Space_dolphin

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 24, 2002
Messages
465
Location
Adelaide
I've been popping e moderately for nearly a year now on average about once a fortnight. I think e has helped me to learn a lot more about myself and has given me a more positive attitude towards life. i don't see myself giving it up in the near future.
I have a non-user friend who i often get into debates with over the use of e. recently i told him that i'm absolutely certain that the most memorable and happiest moments of my life have all been while high on the drug. he said that it's 'artificial happiness' so its not as important. At first i thought it was nonsense but now im thinking he may have a point, should our best moments in life be induced by drugs? Is there a difference?
 
Personally I agree with you. your friend is jut saying it because she hasn't experienced E yet. I have had some of the most best nights of my life on E. hanging with my crew or my gf having no worries in the world, enjoying the music i like, going to a light show, etc...... I love the euphoric loved up feeling E gives u... i do see the point your friend is bringing up, but hey don't let it bother u too much.
 
Good topic. It's something that has concerned me in the past, but I don't think it's something to be worried about. It would be a cause for concern if you were unable to be sufficiently happy without drugs.
 
if ur friend isnt an expierenced user of e, he has no way to base his argument does he? if i never used lsd, i couldnt go around saying "lsd is bad for you, it fills ur brain with demons, and makes people unholy!"
 
MDMA does not, in my view, create artificial happiness. I think what it does is opens your mind to just how happy it's possible to get, and creates empathy, etc. I've met people who have been complete arseholes when on pills so I think it would be better to say that it's an emotion enhancer. The fact that a lot of empathy, etc. are usually carried through to everyday life in the user means that the feelings are already there, otherwise they wouldn't have been experienced in the first place, and certainly wouldn't remain.
I think it's very hard to determine your own stance on a partiular issue, or even to know what you actually think and feel, which explains why people can be so easily persuaded to have a view of anything, depending on what company they're in. MDMA just puts you in a good mood, and allows you to think about things in a much more all-round, logical way where we can see that physical differences actually mean nothing, and that we are all essentially the same, and that there's a bit of good in everyone. Even if it is artificial happiness, it's so good that it doesn't matter anyway.
[ 25 March 2002: Message edited by: LOVING IT! ]
 
What the hell is a fortnight?
Nevermind, I think I just found out it's two weeks......
[ 25 March 2002: Message edited by: Firehawk1 ]
 
Peeps in the states here must not use that term very often, I'm almost positive I've never heard it before.
 
Here in the USA, "fortnight" is like archaic english, like saying "thou" and "thee" and "thy." You see it in movies enough so most people know what it means, but it isn't actually used, except maybe by pretentious-sounding english literature professors.
On the other hand, I had a teacher from England who used the word "twice" and said her friend here in the USA told her we don't use that word, so she explained to all of us that it meant "two times." And we were just staring at her like "what the fuck is up with your friend? we use the word twice all the time!"
Back to the topic, though, the issue of artificial happiness has bothered me at times. Here's how I see it: If you can be as happy as when you are rolling, but naturally, then we should be pursuing that. But if it is biologically impossible to feel as happy naturally, then pop the pills to your hearts content (because you aren't choosing to have something artificial that you could find naturally).
Of course, this just creates a new question--can you be happy as when you are rolling, without rolling? If you win a lottery, I expect you are happier than some one rolling is (though I'm not sure). But that would be short-lived euphoria. (I heard there was a study that 6 months after lottery winners won the lottery, they were no more happy than they were before they won. They got used to it that fast.)
 
Just yesterday, while I was telling a non-drug friend about my fun saturday night (I danced with the homeless. no shit.) he pointed out the same point of view where e isn't real happiness so it doesn't count. BUT then I pointed out that seretonin's one of the basic ways your brain makes itself happy all the time, not just when you're on e. So really it's like happiness is never 'real' in the way that people think it is.
 
I've talked about this with my friends...my view is that all our emotions are chemically induced, even when we're not on drugs. Taking E merely forces your brain to feel happy, but it's no more fake than natural happiness. Most people feel pretty good after sex, or exercising, but is that a fake happiness because you've forced your brain to release endorphins? I don't think so...
 
its not artificial, its enhanced. if you feel it, you feel it. if your memories really are special to you, noone can tell you any different, and dont let them try.
This person cant argue untill they have tried it for themselves anyway.
 
you're releasing serotonin that would be released normally, so all you're doing is dumping it in one (not really one, but a really big one, then a few small leaks after the roll in normal life) load. Then you pay the price the next couple weeks from sertonin depletion. Not to mention if you are using every fortnight you're probably paying the price in terms of down regulation.
 
its not artificial, because its using your body's own natural serum, its not creating something different, its just using what u have to the best of its abilities,thats how I see it.
 
That is a really mean argument. By his logic all the millions of people that use anti-deppresents are experencing "phony happiness." that would be offending to most people who depend on these drugs to survive in the real world.
 
I understand that there are alot of people out there that dont agree with 'e' but i dont let their nasty opinions bother me. They try to fill your head with garbage just to get their point across.
I just think to myself that they will never understand cause they are too narrow minded, and that they are the ones missing out. :)
 
I think your friend brings up a valid point, but one which really doesn't hold up all that well.
Almost every activity that one engages in will produce some kind of emotional response. Whether one gets there kicks from rock climbing or from riding a rollercoaster, everyone engages in one activity or another to give themselves an emotional "high".
When you look at it this way taking ecstasy to achieve an emotional high really isn't all that different. True in the other cases there is a whole lot more work involved in getting to the same place emotionally, but once these states are reached to make a distinction just seems stupid.
~Azure
 
I totally agree with you. I don't think people that haven't done E can even begin to relate...before doing it I had no idea what to expect, so how can they sit there and say it's artificial happiness? Personally, I think it feels pretty real. If you're happy and having fun, I don't think it should matter what got you to that point. :)
ya know?
 
Aside from neurochemical arguments, your friend's statement can be approached from metaphysical lines:
I would take issue with the real/artifical opposition that your friend is arguing. I am of the opinion that a state of being can not be artifical.
My subjective memories and experiences of 'being' while in drugged out states are just as real as my subjective memories and experiences of 'being' while sober. And neither state of being is more valid then another.
For example: on lsd I may notice that my walls look like they are 'breathing,' what is important about this is not weather or not the walls were breathing in any objective sense, but that I subjectively experienced, in a very real way, what it is like to see a wall breathe.
To sum it up: it doesn't matter what caused the 'best moments of your life' what matters is that you experienced the 'best moments of your life.'
Once again I write a reply that probably doesn't make any sense
 
I have times when I look back and say, what the fuck, I was so drugged at that party, how could I have thought it was fun?!?
and other times where I think
God DAMN that was a badass party even without any drugs...drugs just made it all that much better....
Can it sometimes fool you into being happy about something you might not 'normally' get happy about? Sure...but you still actually ARE happy when youre on the drug, so I wouldnt call it 'artificial'....
 
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