Despite understanding your general point, I can’t say I agree with this. I think the issue is understanding that your experience is not everyone’s experience.
Addiction isn’t a mild curiosity, it’s a disease that can and does destroy lives. The notion that “everyone should know what addiction feels like” downplays the immense suffering, loss, and trauma it causes for individuals and their families. You don’t need to burn your hand to understand fire is hot and you don’t need to become addicted to appreciate the power of compulsion, craving, or loss of control. Empathy, literature, conversation, and observation can teach that to a very high extent without the risk. To me this is like injecting something that intentionally causes cancer just to see what it’s like to be a cancer patient/survivor.
Psychedelics are powerful and not universally positive. Yes it’s true many people have profound, life-changing insights from psychedelic experiences, but others experience terrifying, traumatic, or destabilising trips. For those with underlying mental health conditions (which may be undiagnosed), a psychedelic can tip the balance in a lasting and damaging way. There’s no undo button. It’s not a one size fits all rite of passage.
I don’t believe living a rich, meaningful life is simply about ticking off extremes. It’s about integration, understanding, and self-awareness. You can live deeply and wisely without ever ingesting a substance that alters your brain chemistry. Meditation, grief, love, art, parenting, solitude, etc. There are many things that can produce life altering insights without putting your body and mind at risk.
“Experience as much of the human experience as we can tolerate” sounds noble, but some things should not be tolerated lightly. There’s a difference between pushing your boundaries to grow and deliberately dancing with danger. The idea that the future version of yourself will thank you for trying a drug might be true in some cases, but for many that future self is wishing they’d never touched it. I’ve seen it first hand.
The human experience is vast and worth exploring, but not all experiences are equally safe, wise, or necessary to live a rich and meaningful life. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to go caving and I don’t think my life will be significantly worse having not experienced it.
Despite understanding your general point, I can’t say I agree with this. I think the issue is understanding that your experience is not everyone’s experience.
Addiction isn’t a mild curiosity, it’s a disease that can and does destroy lives. The notion that “everyone should know what addiction feels like” downplays the immense suffering, loss, and trauma it causes for individuals and their families. You don’t need to burn your hand to understand fire is hot and you don’t need to become addicted to appreciate the power of compulsion, craving, or loss of control. Empathy, literature, conversation, and observation can teach that to a very high extent without the risk. To me this is like injecting something that intentionally causes cancer just to see what it’s like to be a cancer patient/survivor.
Psychedelics are powerful and not universally positive. Yes it’s true many people have profound, life-changing insights from psychedelic experiences, but others experience terrifying, traumatic, or destabilising trips. For those with underlying mental health conditions (which may be undiagnosed), a psychedelic can tip the balance in a lasting and damaging way. There’s no undo button. It’s not a one size fits all rite of passage.
I don’t believe living a rich, meaningful life is simply about ticking off extremes. It’s about integration, understanding, and self-awareness. You can live deeply and wisely without ever ingesting a substance that alters your brain chemistry. Meditation, grief, love, art, parenting, solitude, etc. There are many things that can produce life altering insights without putting your body and mind at risk.
“Experience as much of the human experience as we can tolerate” sounds noble, but some things should not be tolerated lightly. There’s a difference between pushing your boundaries to grow and deliberately dancing with danger. The idea that the future version of yourself will thank you for trying a drug might be true in some cases, but for many that future self is wishing they’d never touched it. I’ve seen it first hand.
The human experience is vast and worth exploring, but not all experiences are equally safe, wise, or necessary to live a rich and meaningful life. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to go caving and I don’t think my life will be significantly worse having not experienced it.
You did a great job of ignoring the word “tolerate” in my comment.
You’re doing a great job of ignoring my point that many people can’t tolerate a single time.
They won’t know till they try
Sorry you had a bad trip, that’s no excuse to be permanently afraid of life or your own body and to scare others out of having important experiences.