Several months ago, before I knew of
Everything2, I took a
mushroom trip. This trip was different from the other trips I've taken, in that it was the only one that had a sort of "bad" element. I had just experienced four and a half hours of
unearthly peace and
music that made my
soul rejoice.
As I began to come down, however, I became angry with myself. I decided that I was wasting my life away, ignoring my true calling. (At the time I was working over the summer to save for college.) It became clear to me that I was destined to be a writer. I lazily pulled myself out of bed and stumbled to my computer to begin my story.
I was on a mission. I was intent on finishing the story even if it killed me. In a matter of seconds I had conjured up the perfect subject on which to write a book:
Moments ago I decided that I was going to come in here and write a story about the perfect being. This would be a being, alone in a dark universe, but not alone because it has a zillion different facets to its existence. This being is what we, Homo sapiens, should be, but aren't.
I had written my idea down; I was off to a decent start. Onward to the next paragraph.
Anyway, this perfect being is. It just is. I don't know how I thought I would make an interesting story out of this, or fill hundreds of pages, because the perfect being has no conflict. There is absolutely nothing remotely interesting about perfection. It will never capture the reader's attention. We'll all just have to write stories of imperfection, because perfection has no attributes about which to write.
Sadly, this is as yet the final paragraph of my epic story. It has failed to grow with earth-shattering complexity. It is not by life's work . It is not so inherenly ME that I will live on in it, immortalized. I've had more than a few ideas in my lifetime that never did find their way into the story.
I sat there at the computer for a couple more hours that night, documenting what my trip had been like, on the off-chance that I should forget later on. I digressed from the story to explain to myself the circumstances surrounding the commencement of the story. I charged myself with a quest to someday finish what I had started.
I am now attending the art school that I had been saving for. I've thought little about any addition I could make to the story. I've made no steps toward becoming a professional writer. ("Don't quit your day job", I can hear you thinking. Well I won't.) Perhaps the moral here is that shrooms are baaaaaad. Perhaps it is that when you're 18, you don't yet know what your life's work will be. Maybe I should just keep stumbling through life, looking for a new mission. I'm going to go play with my cat now.