I was working for Dow Chemical Company at the time as a research chemist. I had the good fortune of having seen that they were working on an interesting compound. The person in whose lab I was working at Dow had found a very easy way of making an almost unknown compound. They said, “We’d like to find some use for this,” and I said, “Gee, if you added a methyl group on this side instead of on this side, as well as on this side, and put an amine down there and make the carbamate, you’d probably have an insecticide.” “Oh?” So they put the methyl group over here, and put an amine down here—a dimethylamine— and a carbamate, and it became a commercial insecticide. And the attitude there was, “Gee, if you can predict things like that, you can just go do whatever you want to do!” That was about the time I had first tried mescaline, and I knew what I wanted to do.
Sasha Shulgin, interviewed with Anna by Earth & Fire Erowid at Mind States 2007, two parts in one pdf here
The reviews of the Murakami book were mixed, but I enjoyed it, and am not a runner. I liked it for the same reasons that I keep going back to Mishima's Sun & Steel - the idea of coupling mental and physical discipline to reach a state of purity and blankness. This idea is with me a lot.
I have this new life wherein I get to set my own hours and do what I want, so long as the amount of work that I choose to accept gets done. I know that many people need to commute and work in offices, or - closer to home - stand up in front of classes of demanding students and perform. I need to be careful that I don't lose this life, which means I need to wake up and reflect on my luck as I make coffee in the morning, because it would be easy enough to lose this, either by performing badly and losing clients, or some greater misbehavior that would jeopardize my permanent visa, with the probability balanced fairly evenly between the two, propped up on either side by whatever discipline I can cultivate and then maintain.
My natural discipline is not so good, but I form habits very easily, and try and focus on good ones rather than bad ones. The last 10 days or so have been a refreshing proof of concept. I wake up early and start work by 07:30, and work until I lose concentration in the early afternoon.
The modafinil was both efficient and effective, with no obvious changes in perception or physical reaction, just clarity and focus. I want to use it to train myself into better habits. The interesting thing will be to see if I can use chemical scaffolding to build something new, and then have it as a free-standing structure, rather than rely on the drug. The values of psychedelics can be internalized and integrated with no small amount of practice, but is this true for other substances?
And on that note, here's two clips of Terence McKenna and Sasha Shulgin walking and talking together:
A Boston-area housewife considers a Buddha statue in 1963 after taking LSD. NY Times
Another good talk from Ann and Sasha Shulgin, this time at the recent [Sept. 2008] Horizons Perspectives on Psychedelics set of talks. Subjects covered include: Bohemian Grove [Sasha's been a member for 50 yrs], the rapid spread of new substances, a definition of true hallucinations and how to stay healthy in such a life, but as ever with the Shulgins the take away is what a good relationship they have with each other, their selves, and the wider community.
Related sites: Horizons and all the talks from the event, and The Psychedelic Salon has a large and growing archive [158 shows to date] of MP3 discussions and talks with all the usual suspects.
Tired, but riding home and memories from an Ann Shulgin talk [Psychedelic Psychotherapy and the Shadow] that loop back to Leary's Interpersonal Grid / Eight Circuit Brain....essentially this: The Shadow Self is the repressed self, and growing to make a conscious choice to accept the darker self as an ally when necessary. Not getting too attached the idea of a steady state self.
Robert Anton Wilson simplifies / clarifies Leary and puts it into four quadrants: friendly strength, hostile strength, friendly weakness, hostile weakness. You can find more in chapter four of Prometheus Rising [earlier post includes a link to the pdf file], but I have to collapse into other things.
