Smart Shops and Coffee Shops
I knew about coffee shops from when I went to Amsterdam a few years ago, but I didn’t know about smart shops. In Coffee shops you can buy weed and hash and smoke it in there, they have vaporizers and bongs and shit if you want. Mushrooms are illegal to sell in Amsterdam because the law just changed. You buy mushrooms at smart shops. The people who own the smart shops have found this crazy loop hole where they sell magic truffles instead of mushrooms. The truffles are the underground mycelium of the mushroom, so technically not mushrooms. But some smart shops we went into the guy behind the counter would just pull mushrooms out of his pocket and sell them to us. One guy had some really good little thin ones from Hawaii. Kyle hates the taste of the truffles so he eats them with chocolate.
I don’t know if mushrooms are bad for you, I thought they were a natural poison. I know poison isn’t good for you but after it’s out of your system is there any lasting effects? Someone once told me that girl cooks are either bull dikes or head cases, I’m a head case. I thought that I could self medicate with mushrooms and use them as antidepressants. I thought that they can’t be much worse than real antidepressants that make me feel sick and not even happy. I’m not that bad in the head, I was just being lazy and thought that instead of working on myself I could just take pills from a brain doctor. None of the pills that I tried made me happy and I realized that I should just consciously try and improve my self everyday. I told a server once when we were out for a smoke that I give up, I think I’m just going to be sad forever. He told me to never stop trying to overcome it. I don’t know why but what he said meant a lot and I’ve never stopped trying since. It’s been slowly and steadily getting better ever since.
Mushrooms make me laugh, and feel generally lighter. It helps me see things from a different perspective, like through the eyes of a child. This is important to me because when I was a kid I was to busy worrying. Once mushrooms exposed me to being in the moment and everything being magical I could carry that with me into my everyday life. I never forgot how to feel that lightness.
I don’t see crazy visuals. I’ve only ate them a few times, but I’ve noticed that they don’t effect me as much as other people. Kyle sees crazy visuals. I want to break down the wall that I’ve built up that makes me fight different perceptions and perspectives. I feel like it will help me be open in many aspects of my life.
Some people say that mushrooms are really bad for you but I haven’t seen any scientific proof. Everything is bad for you in excess, but I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist! Kyle says that mushrooms bend connections in your brain and if you bend them to much they can break and you can go crazy.
fwiw – from wiki
There have been calls for medical investigation of the use of synthetic and mushroom-derived psilocybin for the development of improved treatments of various mental conditions, including chronic cluster headaches,[19] following numerous anecdotal reports of benefits. There are also several accounts of psilocybin mushrooms sending both obsessive-compulsive disorders (“OCD”) and OCD-related clinical depression (both being widespread and debilitating mental health conditions) into complete remission immediately and for up to months at a time, compared to current medications which often have both limited efficacy[20] and frequent undesirable side-effects.[21] One such study states:
“Developing drugs that are more effective and faster acting for the treatment of OCD is of utmost importance and until recently, little hope was in hand. A new potential avenue of treatment may exist. There are several reported cases concerning the beneficial effects of hallucinogenic drugs (psilocybin and LSD), potent stimulators of 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors, in patients with OCD (Brandrup and Vanggaard, 1977, Rapoport, 1987, Moreno and Delgado, 1997) and related disorders such as body dysmorphic disorder (Hanes, 1996)”[21]
Craig! It was Craig with those words of wisdom! I do recall that moment when my kitchen words we not helping and Craig helped out.
I’d be sad all the time if it wasn’t for the fight. It’s the fight for happiness that makes us happy. If it wasn’t a struggle, it wouldn’t be earned moment by moment, and it would be worthless and hollow.
My sensei always gives the students in my Aikido class a hard time when they are just going through the motions. “Where is your sense of urgency! The attack must be REAL! If there is no struggle, there is no Aikido!” And that, Crust, is the essence of happiness. It is found in the flowers that sprout in our footsteps, but there has to always be something just beyond the horizon for us to continue walking.
Mad Love, for publishing honestly your personal journey. That’s what makes writing real.