A Crackpipe Hit Away from Enlightenment.

My girlfriend was on the 86 tram yesterday, from Latrobe Uni toward the city. The Australian version of a crackhead jumped on the tram, sat across from Rebecca. He was young and white, and as Bek describes him, outwardly normal despite the tell-tale sweat glaze and the glass crackpipe he cradled in a pouch made by his hand. Huddled against the wall to conceal what he's doing, the little crackie flames the ice crystals in the crackpipe bulb from underneath with a cigarette lighter. The crackie eyeballs Bek, a challenge to himself whether he's got the nerve to pharmaceutically masturbate in public, whether she's got the balls to say anything.

Today she does, and asks if he can stop. The crackie smiles happily and puts the crackpipe away.

I can only imagine what smoking ice feels like. I think the universal consensus has come down on the opinion that it provides the mind escape from the daily despair of living in this world. I watched a TED lecture last night by neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor. Watch it after you're done reading this. The pertinent bit I took away was learning how the two hemispheres of the brain think differently. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke, which periodically disconnected the left hemisphere. When allowed to operate alone, her experience existing with only that right hemisphere was the same rapture, ecstasy, erasure of past burdens and future pressures, and oneness with the wonder of the universe is exactly how I imagine the ultimate drug trip. When she described the left brain reasserting itself, a left brain dominated person was far more literal, grounded in the past obligations and future necessities.

When you watch the video, you'll see Bolte Taylor speak of the experience like a tele-evangelist method acting the rapture of God. Except she's not acting.

It occurred to me that a workaholic business executive is left brain biased. A tripping crackhead exists in his right brain.

The late Joseph Campbell spoke extensively on the mythological precedents of enlightenment, bliss and happiness. He was and is the pre-eminent self help guru for skeptical, intellectual wankers like myself. One of his examples was the Buddha, and the three temptations he overcame to achieve enlightenment. Jesus had his; Buddha's were: lust, fear and social duty.

Think on this. A hardcore druggie gets three things when he's an addict: no more erections, he'll do anything to get high, and he doesn't give a shit. To paraphrase Palahniuk, to allow that which does not matter truly slide. And while they are high, the experience seems very similar to the right brain rapture described by Jill Bolte Taylor.

Obviously, a crackhead is not granted any special wisdom or insight when the drugs allow the right brain to rule. But wouldn't it be nice if I could care less about the things that don't really matter.