Random revelation. opinions?

[sheepie]

So today I was at the gym riding a stationary bike. From this bike you have a view of the gymnasium (basketball court-like) a floor below you. Today there were a couple dozen kids probably a grade ~1 or 2 age. They were part of this activity thing because their parents can't pick them up until later so to pass the time they come to this gym and play with foam swords and frisbees and basketballs, etc.

Anyway, why is this relevant to psychedelics you may ask?

Well I was observing them and I was noticing all the chaos of their little society. Some were being bullied, some were bullies. Some obviously had low-self esteem for no reason. There was this really tall girl that kept getting bullied. I was thinking to myself: I remember when I was that age I had no clue what the hell was going on, just like them, but I didn't realize it back then. I was trapped in my illusion of childhood. I remember being one of them, down there. Viewing it from above made all the chaos so obvious, useless and well... meaningless.

As my thought process continued, I realized that if I didn't know it back then when I still had my child-ego, then what do I know right now? For all I know there could be someone watching me from above like I watch the children, drawing conclusions on my useless materialistic life. There's probably so much about my society I don't know right now because I'm still "down there" with my ego.

I guess this sort of idea the first stepping stone of psychedelic revelations, but it just made so much sense seeing the little kids down there with their limited perspectives. Even more obvious than the first shroom trip, although I probably would never have thought in this thinking pattern if I never did psyches.

Thoughts?

 

[Lord]

This seems like a psychedelic stoner revelation because you're using a concept out of its context in a repetitive, evidence-lacking way. These spontaneous fractal thoughts usually don't lead to anything very interesting or even real, just a trippy mess that lacks novelty and evidence. I've been in the delusion myself. I don't believe there is something watching me from above, drawing conclusions on my useless materialistic life. This doesn't necessarily mean that I believe nothing is watching me from above, I just don't believe something is.
I think your theory needs a bit of work.

 

[Shakti]

Lord you totally missed the point.

sheepie... we are all always "down there" mired in illusions born of finite perspective. There's always more up.

 

[Lord]

Lord you totally missed the point.

sheepie... we are all always "down there" mired in illusions born of finite perspective. There's always more up.

You can't blame me for being on drugs, can you?

I don't think realizing that we have a limited perspective is much of a revelation.

 

[t.ska]

i never realize things on drugs, its always the day after. i love those fractal thoughts, keeps things in persepctivee ( or puts perspective into things)

 

[solistus]

You can't blame me for being on drugs, can you?

I don't think realizing that we have a limited perspective is much of a revelation.

Still missing the point, methinks. Obviously we have a limited perspective; the OP's point, as I understood it anyway, was that we usually don't recognize this, because we are so caught up in the social environment we find ourselves in that it seems natural and 'complete'. Only an outsider to that social scene - ourselves at a later time, for instance - can look and say "here's what's really going on, and all the rest is just silly pointless interpersonal drama." Sometimes it's helpful to 'take a step back' and try to view your own life, right now, as though you were an outsider.

As a critical theory guy with a Lacanian background, this sounds very much like a discussion of ideology to me. Objectively, the social relations we enter into are imperfect, chaotic, full of irrational behavior and flawed outcomes, but at the time it all seems real, reasonable, meaningful. You get to high school, and you can look back at yourself as a kid and think, "man, I did a bunch of silly/stupid stuff and got worked up over absolutely nothing all the time, all those social relations were so childish. Now I'm relatively mature, and my social relationships are actually meaningful." Graduate from HS and within a couple years, you'll feel exactly the same way about your HS years.

The way we humans attach meaning and importance to our social relations is not fundamentally a rational process. Social relations are ultimately about organizing society on a macro scale, yet we as individuals have to invest meaning into them if we want to participate in society daily without losing our minds. It never hurts to try to look at your own life and social position 'objectively' to see how many of the things you worry about actually matter and how much are just ideology playing tricks on you.

To get a bit political with my parting thought: like the child who can't "see" the truth of his or her own schoolyard social environment, we as adults are conditioned to focus on and stress out about our social status and position, and this makes it harder for us to look at the material conditions of our society and what part we play in that system. My user icon should give you a pretty good idea of why I consider any discussion of the material conditions of society to be inherently political; if not, read your Marx!

 

[sheepie]

As a critical theory guy with a Lacanian background, this sounds very much like a discussion of ideology to me. Objectively, the social relations we enter into are imperfect, chaotic, full of irrational behavior and flawed outcomes, but at the time it all seems real, reasonable, meaningful. You get to high school, and you can look back at yourself as a kid and think, "man, I did a bunch of silly/stupid stuff and got worked up over absolutely nothing all the time, all those social relations were so childish. Now I'm relatively mature, and my social relationships are actually meaningful." Graduate from HS and within a couple years, you'll feel exactly the same way about your HS years.

Pretty much nailed the idea thanks

 

[Roger&Me]

if not, read your Marx!

Groucho? :D