The Rocket and the Compass

It's 10:28 this morning and I'm craving my daily late-morning dose of coffee because I'm starting to feel sleepy. I had quit caffeine a while ago and begun to really regulate my sleeping much better, but then for whatever reason my sleep schedule once again got out of whack and so I went back to resorting to the artificial stimulus to keep me fully awake and alert (well, not always alert, but certainly jittery) during the day. And now the latent Stoic in me is once again asserting his will and has me wondering: is it not better to try to replace the artificial stimulus with something that doesn't leave the twin, related karmic stains of dependence and lack of control in it's wake?

All drugs affecting the imagination (i.e., the species of psychotropics and stimulants) are useful for probing the limits of "the ego and its own" inasmuch as they act as a sort of chemical "booster rocket" to reach areas of one's psyche not normally accessible to the waking-self. The problem with modern drug use is that it lacks a set of controls for the purpose of directing the motive energy behind this "boosting." (In fact, in past cultures from where we derive our evidence of the use of psychotropics they were almost always a sacrament; that is, but one component of a ritual suite, and, presumably, rendered far less potent if not dangerous by the absence of the rest of the components.) In other words while you know you are going somewhere you probably wouldn't be able to get to otherwise, the problem is you can and usually do end up almost anywhere (up to and including states of more or less permanent psychosis in the more extreme of cases). There is no directing, stable reference, at least partially because the subcultures which make available these altered states of reality are predominantly and fundamentally opposed to strictures and forms, and in fact the drugs they help make available are a concrete manifestation of the hedonism existing as one of their cardinal virtues. This applies as much to the subculture of illicit drug use as to the mainstream culture of 'acceptable' drugs such as nicotine, alcohol and caffeine, in the latter case both because of the need to enforce the culture-wide illusion of individualism (which would be greatly hampered even by the suggestion that one should act responsibly even when it doesn't directly affect others, as with alcohol consumption) and by the inherent conflict of interest between responsible consumption and profit.

So, past the point of an experimental and largely haphazard and accidental acquainting of oneself with the limits of one's ego, what's the point of drug use? Somewhere within those limits there must exist a place where one is at one's optimum with respect to manifesting one's will; the coffee high enabling an ill-gotten wakefulness would properly fall under the general heading of agencies used to access this place. Even aside from the effects of attention-dispersal attendant upon caffeine consumption, the problem, then, with this scenario is that acts of will become beholden to something existing outside of the will proper. This is something which cannot be emphasized too much, because the dependence on outer agencies with respect to manifestation can only have a deleterious influence on the more subtle layers of one's being, resulting from and contributing to an even further removal from, and misalignment from, the personal sovereign principle, than is even the normative case with most modern specimens of homo sapiens sapiens. And it might perhaps not be entirely superfluous to point out that the vector which leads away from this principle is exactly the same one which leads toward destructive addictions, and possibly other psychoses and pathologies as well.

It is also useful to note that, in general, even "experimental" drug use is of course just as accompanied by the sensual and mental gratification endowed by the experience of the drug as recreational drug use is - the intent in no way affects the ontological status of the substance or its influence (except perhaps to a very highly-disciplined will). [As an aside: it might be interesting to try to research the connections between gratification/euphoria and altered/heightened awareness - note that logically, at least, such a relationship does not appear to be one of necessity.] Thus the boost in wakefulness and productivity experienced by the coffee-drinker is accompanied by the well-known high (subtle though it usually is), and in accordance with laws whose shadows even classical physics admitted familiarity with, the net deficit is paid for with a depletion of energy some hours later. The point, however, is that there is little chance that recourse to an external agency - of any hue - will completely escape the quite pronounced tendency in modern mankind towards being taken with "instant gratification." Thus a positive-feedback loop is in danger of being established, or of being strengthened, in every instance where manifestation relies to some degree on external agency - a feedback loop only aided and abetted by the organism's continuing struggle to defend itself against the invading pathogens by increasing its resistance to their efficacy, thus necessitating higher future dosages for even the maintenance of a stable level of efficacy. Through this process, manifesting one's will becomes another exercise in appeasing the lower, appetitive aspect of the animal self, which is the part of the psyche to which instant gratification makes its most demanding appeals. One can very well wonder at this point if will even enters into the process at any time in any significant way.

The only way out, then, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the logic of the bootstrap: using solely the will to manifest the will (i.e., will as simultaneous object and agency). The sole theoretical egress from this conundrum comes with an understanding of the will as itself a representative of that which is itself conditioned by nothing because, in its proper function vis a vis the individual being, it is not conditioned by those things which would normally occupy the being's attention, nor in fact by anything else short of the horizon effected by the sheer physical and psychic limits of the organism. It is the sole motive spark, the personal "unmoved mover," the very locus of the Stoic ideal of utter sufficiency and impassiveness. When the will is understood in this way, the necessity for outer agency becomes the opportunity for exercising and strengthening the will. Where necessity would otherwise mean dependence and a decrease in the overall control over one's being, a willful privation and a contempt for the fruits of the senses cleaves the superfluous, the wasteful, and the harmful, from those things for which a need can be depended on to only maximize the limits to the operation of the will in its domain - again, the limits of the human organism (on the basis of understanding life itself as embodying the self-surpassing limit). The spectrum of such things runs from the simple cornerstones of personal survival and health on through far more conditioned and aery realms such as that covered by the maxim "strength through joy."

In this way, a potentially fruitful drug use could be the preserve of those whose will is already sufficiently differentiated, so as to enable a concerted and focused direction and guidance for the extra motive spark provided by the drug. As an example I will conclude this essay with a link to Chapter 7 of the memoirs of the modern synthesizer of LSD, which chapter was devoted to the drug experiences and reflections of Ernst Jünger, a correspondent of Dr. Hofmann's, and surely as shining an example of a unified will as one is likely to find in our times. Of interest, too, are the details of the conditions under which these experiments were conducted, as well as the utter seriousness with which they were conducted; standards which anyone choosing to partake would surely benefit from taking into account.

11 March 2003