Lessons from Shambhala

Shambhala is a 5 day party in the forests of a Salmo river ranch. It draws a crowd of ten thousand or more. What do I make of the debauchery I just went through? I figure I can make something of it if I draw lessons from my trip through that sticky web of interlocking lifestyles. If I take a microscope to what happened, I might emerge with some insights, and not of the wishful spiritual flavor I used to pursue anywhere drugs were involved.

Lesson #1: I smoked some dope, swigged some tequila, and popped some mild pharms, till I got to a haze in which I couldn’t differentiate what was doing what to my head. I wandered back to the pavilion, draped in arabian fabrics, but I couldn’t get in because I didn’t realize one of the fabrics was not separated, but draped from one pole to the other, with three inviting-looking cloths in front saying: “come on in… it’s easy!”

Eventually I figured out what was up, and went around the other side. Jesse said something about it being an I.Q. test. So I sat down and slurred, “goddamn Mensa bullshit”. This seemed to strike a nerve or a chord or I don’t know what. Anyway, it got more reaction from Marco and Jesse than anything I’d said previously. Turned out Jesse had gotten into Mensa, and Marco possibly, I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I started thinking I’d offended them. Then Marco said something that I interpreted as being a joke for him and Jesse to share, at my expense, that I wasn’t expected to get. And I didn’t. It’s possible I was thinking in this paranoid way because of my conception of Mensa as being a society of intelligent jerks who like to lord their smarts over the dumb hordes, whom I identified with, since I feel I lack a common-sense, problem-solving sort of intelligence, and flourish more in less technical, more artistic niches. So this feeling of being made fun of mixed with my nervousness over causing offense as the conversation flowed on. I told them I’d rather not know what my I.Q. is. I’d rather cultivate delusions. Water them daily, give them light, have conversations with them.

Lesson #2: The ego trip is uncomfortable for me on E. I tried reading bits of my novel to the group I was rolling with, but I was so flighty and manic I couldn’t read or focus or be into any of it. Extrovision works better. When I’m rolling, I need to leave the art behind and be open to others, be art in my interaction with them. Material brings me down. “My” material even moreso.

Lesson #3: Glowsticks are cool.

Lesson #4: E is like alcohol times 1000. Affirmation mode without the sick swoon. Realization of possibility. Opening the window. Hug-love-drug-bullshit. Makes me very uncool. “And you say you can’t express”, I said as the Russian girl sang. So heartfelt, but so fucking trite, so not me. And so fake, because did she even say she couldn’t express? I can’t remember.

Lesson #5: You can be on E, with googley eyes and a hyperactive jaw, but still, if you smile at people, even girls who looked like they walked straight out of your wettest dream will likely smile back.

Lesson #5.5: I should bring chewing gum to my next roll, otherwise I’ll be sticking my tongue out every few seconds like a lizard, and not be aware of it until someone points it out to me.

Lesson #6: After the E wore off, it was pretty much downhill. So now I deem myself “jaded”. I’m so concerned with living in the “real world”, and the rules of the real world, and the obligations of accepting and exploiting and living by those rules. But Robert Anton Wilson’s axiom still rings true, reality is what you can get away with. So why not make my own real world, to the extent that I can? Which is more than I usually think. Not talking to the hot girl because I’m an uncool undeserving creep isn’t the “harsh reality”, it’s me making a harsh reality for myself.

Reality certainly gives me negative material to work with. I’ve certainly done creepy uncool things in the past (see Lesson #5.5). But they needn’t have any bearing on this moment, with this stranger. I can make them have bearing, but that’s not a universal truth or an objective reality, it’s my subjective imposition.

Lesson #7: I had many moments of feeling like people had windows into my head they shouldn’t have. Like they knew way more about me than they had any right to, like how the FUCK can this person read me this well? I had some freaky moments like that last year at Shambhala. This time it happened on E, and off. I was grooving on a Keith Jarrett album, the Koln Concert, loving the music more than I’d loved any music that weekend, but also paranoid that the people around me were annoyed at the music and it was imposing on their conversation, and should I turn it down, or should I turn it off, or would that be awkward because I would be unable to hide being upset and thus acknowledge the tension, etc. And then Marco started going on about how long winded this Keith Jarrett guy was, and then Finch joked that “the good part starts after the intermezzo”, and others joined in along these lines, and I felt like these people were doing an unbelievably perfect job of parodying me, and the way I talk, and the kinds of things I say, and it was hard to take. So I turned off the CD and went for a walk.

Earlier, a guy wandered into our camp saying he knew Finch. Finch didn’t remember him, but he hung out with us and jabbered enthusiastically. Everything he said sounded exactly like I remembered myself to sound when I’d been rolling. In an embarrassing way. I could see he had his window open wide. Maybe we were closed. Closed for business. Marco was trying to remember where we’d put our bag of weed, so he asked for his “marijuana cigarette”, whereupon the stranger stood up and shouted to the tents beyond: “Does anyone have a marijuana cigarette?!” repeating the inquiry several times, loudly, eager to help out. “Oh god,” I thought, “You probably think that’s the coolest line in the world, you poor man. But wait three hours.” And I cringed, for him, and for myself.

Actually now, two days later, it’s pretty funny to me. Why can’t I laugh at myself? I’m so pitifully ego bound. Ugh. Narcissus hurled.





Lesson #8: Possible pretext for strange socialization: “Can I hang with you guys for a while? My friends all ditched me.” Whereupon I make up an interesting story about my “friends”, perhaps with kernels of truth in it. If I can filter out audible desperation, it might be useful.

Lesson #9: I have a certain degree of homophobia, not because I worry about being gay, but because I worry about being weak, which has become synonymous in my head. That’s not due to any personal logic construct, but because of the irrational imprints I’ve gotten from society. I’ve become so twisted up, however, that at times I’ve come to believe it really is about being gay, despite my lack of sexual interest in men. Because I could always be suppressing something right? Then I remember – oh yeah, in my head, gay is shorthand for weak – that’s the real issue. Gender psychology creates a lot of anxiety for me. It’s true, I yearn for aspects of masculinity I feel I lack. But I would never want to go anywhere close to an extreme with that. It’s not where my soul lies. I guess my soul flinches in a conflicting recoil from both the yin and the yang. I’m a discordant S curve. Designed for insecurity. Evolutionarily maladaptive. Genetically defective.

Lesson #10: I understood perfectly what Shulgin meant when he dubbed MDMA Window. It did feel like a window. A massive opening in the mind, so that I was free of my past and future, able to speak to anybody about anything. If I could have those extra chemicals sloshing through my brain blood all the time, yeah, I would live in that clear bright universe of possibility, with all the neurotic roadblocks thrown down – I could romp through life unimpeded, get what I want in a benign way, with love as my hyperdrive. But I’d wreck my brain, and end up an idiot. And say I did decide to keep my finger on the switch, a permanent ecstasy drip – who’s to say I would be able to sustain the mental appreciation of the magic window even WITH those extra chemicals? What if the window stays open, but it loses its magic? Wouldn’t I eventually realize I’m acting like a lizard? The reason “ecstasy” works is because of its kinetics. That means a rocket ride up and a crash landing.

Lesson #11: A lot of people tried very hard to make me dissatisfied with my life, what I’ve achieved, and where I’m at. I guess they succeeded. But they failed at spurring me on, which I assume was their intent.

When people try and press on me the potential that I have, and by implication, the wasting away I’m doing in not giving 100%, I don’t feel incited to greatness. I feel depressed and frustrated that I’ll never get to these enticing heights because despite the fact that I do lust after money and fame, I don’t lust after it enough to want to practice four hours a day. I sold out to some extent, but not enough. And I won’t sell out to make other sell outs feel better about themselves. I don’t want to be a session player, and make three grand recording a leslie organ part for your Alice in Chains-inspired band, exactly the way you want it. I’m still an artist, as pretentious as that sounds. Well, it comes with the job. Not a good substitute for money, but there are a few perks, like being allowed to be pretentious.

Lesson #12: Despite the previous lesson, it is time I got serious about music – and that means pain, discomfort, and frustration, but it also means I may prevail and reap the rewards. I should lock myself away, quit the drugs, and be a secluded scowling zen pianist (I’ve lacked the moxie to call myself a “pianist” since I quit trying for virtuosity five years ago). I should work on my technique, theory, and sight reading – it would be a good, boring, non-artistic thing to focus on, since, even though I’m an artist, I’m utterly fucking bored of art, particularly music.

That’s the thing with false positives, even those that come in a single small pill – they leave you unenthused. At least I have the good fortune to also be unenthused with more false positive. Although like the last time I did E, I did get close to the addiction cycle. I did think: well, if I’m this down, and it looks like this is a harsh lesson in the nature of perception, I might as well do that E again, I did feel good no matter how false it was and I know I can get there again.

Lesson #13: I’m craving the novelty of strangers, especially those of the female persuasion, because I can’t be complacent anymore. I don’t want to take them home – I have no home of my own to take them to. I just want to get a little deeper than the sparse and subtle surface grazing I’ve done thus far. I don’t know how to begin doing that and I don’t think it should be contrived. I used to sit around and people would come up to me, eventually. That seems to be happening less, maybe because I have less of a fuck-off attitude, and am therefore less cool, less intriguing. I guess I’m going to have to do something to get attention, like be a better musician.

Lesson #14: Finch is really taken with the idea of me going off somewhere, to a good school in a big city and making connections. I appreciate her driving me on, I appreciate it more than the opinions of the annoying cokehead who thinks he’s a producer genius, and I know this is the kind of advice I should be taking. Except I don’t know if school’s what I really need at the moment. I think what I really need is to practice what I already know I need to do – on my own. If I can pull that off, I can think about refining my skills in academia. Finch said, well, you could stay here and be in Aaron’s salsa band – scornfully. But actually, that’s the kind of thing that DOES motivate me to practice. Not going to some fucking school in Vancouver. But taking a smaller step toward perfecting something that I see as achievable in the near term. And I’d like to keep working at the bakery for a while longer, because I value stability. Whether that chips away at the rebel cool I’m supposed to have, or not.

Lesson #15: I had a strange feeling after last year’s Shambhala that lasted a couple of weeks. Everything looked different, although I couldn’t say why. It was like all the emotional connotations of things had been stripped away, and reality was a kind of blank slate. It was an empty feelings, but it was also like I could re-imprint ideas and feelings on to familiar stimuli. It was like someone had hit the restart button on my limbic system. I’d thought it was the acid that caused it. But I got the same feeling this year, upon returning from Shambhala, and no acid was in the mix. So it’s definitely the E that causes that. MDMA scares me because it causes changes in my brain that seem to last a long time, and are very wide-ranging and profound, and usually not for the better, although I must say, very educational.

Lesson #16: I was warm and finally about to sleep Saturday night when Finch came in to the tent. She needed her comfy bed (probably the best in a 50 tent radius) for herself. So I got out to relocate to my tent. But we sat and talked for a while, in the cold and dregs. I was thinking about doing more E, but the last roll was scary, and I knew I’d feel even worse coming off a second dose, and who knew how long the aftermath might fuck with me? So I thought I was done for the night and ready to sleep, but Finch (or “Jenn” as I kept calling her that weekend) seemed agitated, and craving a cup of Moroccan Mint tea, so I walked back into town and got one for her. And felt really good going in, and coming back. Philanthropy – it isn’t E, but it’s good for the soul.

Lesson #17: Monikers are fun, they help shift identity. Anyone who wants can call me “Johnny” now. J’than is old paradigm, and Hector never meant much, except to old soul mates.