The Pothead

(The Pothead. Please pass this along to those whom you think could benefit. Thank you.)

He is not your ordinary pothead. In fact, by looking at him you would never know. He smokes pot most of the time. He consumes pot in the same way a sick person would consume her medicine. He does not mind telling people that when he is smoking pot everything feels better. His life long depression seems to slip away. Suddenly he cares about how he looks and feels an excited vibration towards life just around the area of his heart. Dark clouds part from the sky of his consciousness and light starts to flood in. Have you ever seen what happens to a child who is protein deprived and then receives a good dose of protein? It’s as if they are risen from the dead. He likes to tell this to his doctor who thinks that the daily consumption of pot can lead to lung cancer, schizophrenia, short-term memory loss, amotivational syndrome and intellectual stupor. Every time he visits his doctor (which is less often since he started consuming pot regularly) he reminds himself that he needs to find a new, more enlightened doctor.

His favorite time to take his medicine is in the mornings and again in the evenings. He works at a local bank and it is a job that often depresses him and causes him a great deal of inner conflict (as a progressive, radical, leftist, anarchist he believes that banks and corporations go against his deeper liberationist values). When he takes his medicine in the mornings he is suddenly excited about the day ahead of him, even if it is a ten-hour work day at the bank. After he takes his medicine, life feels good again and anything that he does can be experienced as a pleasurable activity.

He does not smoke to get high, not eighty percent of the time at least. Well this is not true- in the evenings he consumes pot to get high, to be fully immersed in a relaxing cocoon, to be in love again. In the mornings he consumes pot to feel better, to feel excited about life again. Normally in the mornings he is miserable. He has practiced meditation, exercised, done all sorts of things to feel good in the mornings but nothing has worked. After taking his medicine in the mornings he can be seen skipping around, smiling, pleasurably writing, going for long joy filled walks and laughing. It’s as if the depression immediately dissipates and he becomes awake to his life in ways that were not accessible to him when not consuming pot. His girlfriend likes to tell him that when consuming pot he is fun to be around again.

No one at the bank knows that he consumes pot. If they knew that the reason why he was so engaging, exceptional at his job and happy was because he was under the influence of pot, they would judge him. They might even see him as a drug addict (even though most of them take daily anti-depression medication pills), so he keeps his pot smoking to himself.

Certainly when he is not under the influence of pot he feels a higher degree of agitation and depression. He feels less satisfied, as if a certain quality of happiness has abandoned him. The negative side-effects of pot are a small price to pay for what he gains as a result of his consumption of pot. Everything has its trade offs, he believes. There is the yin and yang in every aspect of life. The definition of intelligence is to know and act appropriately when the positive outweighs the negative and vice versa.

This morning when he awoke it was dark and cloudy out. He felt a heaviness in his chest and a blackness in his head. He made himself some coffee and read the paper version of The New York Times. He felt heavier and heavier until finally he decided that it was time to take his medicine. Within ten minutes he was in the shower and then getting dressed up nicely for work. He was smiling and joyfully listening to music. He did some cleaning up around his house before leaving for work. He kissed his cats goodbye. On his drive to work he did not feel the heavy, unsatisfying weight of displeasure that can consume a person when going to a job that they hate. Instead he was present, enjoying the music coming through his car speakers. He felt lucky to have a car.

The pothead consumes pot every night before going to bed. Prior to not consuming pot before bed his sleep was always interrupted by back pains, leg pains, chest pains, breathing problems and the never ending gyrations of a restless mind. Now he sleeps every night through, uninterrupted by anything except the occasional need to pee. He is not troubled by overwhelming dreams or any other discomforts while sleeping. His sleep is the sleep of those who inhabit the realm of weightlessness, boundlessness and have been able to completely let go of all attachments. It is the sleep of a very pleasant nothingness.

When he does not take his medicine his cats drive him crazy. He feels overwhelmed by the mess they make, their financial upkeep cost and the damage to his home that they have done. He often ignores them. After consuming pot, there are few people’s company that he enjoys more than his cats. He loves his cats and wants to play with them. He laughs at the amount of trouble they cause and appreciates their defiance and destructiveness. His cats become his best friends. He is well aware that when he takes his medicine (consuming pot) the whole world becomes like his cats. Everything becomes interesting and enjoyable. He is comfortable with his life and life seems comfortable with him. Activities that often cause him drudgery are fun. He wants to engage with the world. When under the influence of pot he is able to see just how unhappy and heavy the majority of people are (including himself at times), how uninspired they are about their lives.

He is well aware that this is a fundamental part of being a pothead that he needs to accept. When under the influence of pot his consciousness seems to work better. It seems to become re-invigorated and alive. However, the majority of humans that he is around are unable to access these plateau states. They are weighed down by life. This can be alienating for the pothead, but what he has learned is that through being more alive, more invigorated by life, he has a greater capacity to handle the daily suffering of the human race. After all, life involves a great deal of suffering. The person who lives for 40 years and does not experience a great degree of suffering is someone who is exceptionally lucky. They have a high degree of good karma. However, even they too will eventually experience an increase in their levels of suffering as life goes on. For the pothead, the general suffering that seems to be involved in daily living is almost completely eradicated when consuming pot. It would not be a stretch to think of the pothead as someone who has mastered the art of living, once they take their medicine. The pothead is well aware that pot could indeed save the world.

The pothead is thinking that this weekend he will buy a new bike and start going on long and spontaneous bike rides.