The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.
Monday March 2, 2015
In the spirit of experimentation with the #WeekdayRamble format this week we’re introducing the new #ThreeQuotes feature. Each day I’ll post three quotes (go figure) about different topics and say a few words about them.
Today’s theme: LSD.
George Harrison: “The first time I took it, it just blew everything away”
Up until LSD, I never realized that there was anything beyond this state of consciousness. But all the pressure was such that, like the man [Bob Dylan] said, 'There must be some way out of here.' I think for me it was definitely LSD. The first time I took it, it just blew everything away. I had such an incredible feeling of well-being, that there was a God and I could see Him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience within twelve hours. It changed me and there was no way back to what I was before. It wasn't all good, because it left a lot of questions as well. And we still had to continue being fab, you know? And now with that added perspective, it wasn't easy.
My exposure to LSD has been solely through hearing about other people’s experiences with it and listening to music influenced by it. I think George gives too glowing of a review of it here. The key line is “It wasn’t all good, because it left a lot of questions as well.” Post-LSD George, and John Lennon for that matter, were never quite as fun and they found it harder to be themselves. The effects of the drug are illusory, and if you take it as anything more than that it’s bound to fuck you up.
Steve Jobs: “It reinforced my sense of what was important”
Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.
Steve Jobs is okay. It’s sort of cool that he realized that “creating great things instead of making money” and “putting things back into the stream of history and human consciousness” are important, but that it took a drug to get him there is sketchy.
Charles Bukowski: “Take LSD, then you are a poet, an intellectual. What a sick mob.”
LSD, yeah, the big parade — everybody's doin' it now. Take LSD, then you are a poet, an intellectual. What a sick mob. I am building a machine gun in my closet now to take out as many of them as I can before they get me.
- Charles Bukowski
This quote most accurately sums up my thoughts on LSD. Surprisingly the lesser-Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, also saw through the LSD cultures bullshit.
Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He is also a contributor for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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