--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltabl...@...> wrote: > > But focusing on abusers of alcohol ignores all the great works > of art and literature that was facilitated by its use. Like all > drugs it gives a different state of mind and many people > throughout history have used it for good in their creative lives.
An excellent point, and one that relates to what I was saying earlier about pot shifting one's "assemblage point." Well, so does alcohol, when overdone. So does meditation. Artists don't resist these shiftings of their assemblage points (and thus the shift in their POV), they embrace them. And often they wrest great works from those shifts. And, interestingly, their works are often viewed as masterpieces by the same people who pass prohibition laws. Go figure. > The list is endless of associating a masterpiece in any field > with a specific drug which helped the person access a part of > themselves that they needed to produce it. One could probably do a valid and publishable Ph.D. thesis on music and the "drug of choice" that influenced it. > Not to mention the way people getting together using alcohol or > drugs experience a heightening of intimacy. Not everyone wakes > up next to a hideous stranger the next day. Some of us have met > lifelong friends this way. Indeed. Speaking completely honestly and from the heart, gimme a good saloon any day over the highest and purest ashram you can name. The people at the saloon will probably be more honest, and they'll be having more fun. :-) <snip> > And I'm sorry but the list of people who have created great > works of art on meditation has not yet panned out. Ahem. Might I recommend "The Turquoise Bee: The Love- songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama," by Rick Fields and Brian Cutillo? Or the works of Ikkyu or Bankei? These guys ROCKED. They could definitely get high and write like sumbitches. And their "drug of choice" was meditation. Mostly. :-)