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lilgrasshoppah

PART I: THE OVERVIEW

Of all human drives and emotions, empathy requires the most investment to function. Empathy is not inborn, not instinctual. It is an almost entirely learned behavior. In fact, it is contrary to nature, for nature teaches “ME first, last, and at all times”. Even so, that’s not the problem. The problem is: empathy is necessary for an individual to integrate successfully into a group. Therefore, we must know what empathy is, and how to apply empathetic reasoning, if we wish to succeed an individual… as a society… as a race.

Empathy simply means ‘understanding another point of view.’ But true empathy extends past the ability to “walk a mile in another man’s shoes”. It is the ability to viscerally experience a new perspective. Now, we begin to see the all encompassing nature of empathy. To have empathy is the beginning of genius. One has a difficult time being creative, if one is not empathetic. One cannot be artistic if one is not empathetic. Thinking outside the box… playing the Devil’s Advocate… brain storming… these are all products of empathetic reasoning.

Babies know nothing of empathy. They voice their needs and desires stridently, and with little comprehension of what their demands cost others. A baby, lying in its crib, does not realize that its 2:00 a.m. feeding time taxes Mother. But it learns. Mother and Father, through a series of rewards and punishments, gradually teach Baby what is acceptable behavior. But as a child grows, this system of rewards and punishments is woefully inadequate as a model for teaching true empathy.

True empathy is a paradigm shift, born of a life of experience. The more one experiences, the more likely one is going to be empathetic, and the more ammunition one has to be creative. The most empathetic (and the most creative therefore) are those few who have non-ordinary experiences… extraordinary experiences, and use those non-ordinary experiences to gain insight. What sort of non-ordinary experiences? Ecstasy, dizziness, rage, joy, adrenaline rush, transcendence, lust, hypnosis… these are just some of the non-ordinary experiences a human can have. Humans crave these experiences… and will seek out non-ordinary experiences in multiple forms.

Of course, there are drugs. All psychoactive substances create non-ordinary realities. All drugs cause, to greater or lesser extents, paradigm shifts. Therefore, in spite of what some moralists and prohibitionists may state, drugs are a pathway to empathy. How do we know this? Think of all of the great thinkers in the past two thousand years. The vast majority of them were drugs users (alcohol being a drug). What did drugs do for them… aside from the obvious, short-term pleasure effects? Winston Churchill, for example, did some of his best thinking while he was doing his heaviest drinking. Another interesting correlation: in many of the great centers for learning, or creation: the places where our leaders and teachers gather, these places also feature heavy widespread poly-drug use. Why is that? Hollywood, New York, Silicon Valley, Washington; Berkley, Harvard, Yale… these places swim in beer, cocaine, and pot. A simple case of pleasure seeking… of drugs going to where the money is? An interesting theory. But false. People who abuse drugs solely for pleasure are generally poor… and their poverty is generally a life-long condition, pre-existing the beginning of their drug use. The image of wealthy people descending into numbed, chemical oblivion, (while popular) is inaccurate. Crack-heads, junkies, nicotine addicts, and alcoholics: most of these aren’t exactly rolling in dough, aren’t they…? And most of them use drugs to escape reality… Not to expand or explore reality.

Drugs are called "mind-expanding" substances for a reason. Perhaps this is why so many religions use drugs as sacraments: mind expansion, shifting one’s perspective… these are religious experiences. Almost all major religions (not just the shamanistic nor animist neither: I’m talking Jews and Christians and Moslems here) have at least one intoxicant as a central part of their religious rites. Drugs prepare the mind for new truths, or a more complete reality.

That being said, psychoactive substances are not the only means of attaining a heightened awareness. Anything from riding a merry-go-round to BASE jumping is a non-ordinary experience. “It’s like a drug” is never truer. It’s like a drug, not just because, like a drug, it is pleasurable, but also because it shifts reality.

Just as all religions use drugs for symbolic or actual shifts of perspective, so too do they use events to achieve the same goal. Ecstatic singing, drums, impassioned speeches, these all induce altered states. Furthermore, large crowds themselves can, and do have a mind altering effect. Many religions use these artificially altered states to unfairly sway the beliefs of those present: they abuse their opportunity to teach empathy, and instead teach compliance: compliance to power-whores and freedom thieves.

Have you ever wondered why girls shriek at concerts? They scream so loud that they drown out the voices of their heroes — why? It’s because what they are doing is a mass experiment in altered states. By screaming their brains out, the girls create an artificial reality… and they ride that tide of emotions until after the concert is over. (A concert where they may have not heard a single note).

People talk about the ‘runner’s high’, because it is a high. It treats the brain and the body the same way as a drug does. It floods the brain with the same chemicals.

Sexual intercourse is one of the most empathetic experiences we can have. If you are willing to learn, your lover will teach you things you can’t learn in any other context. This is why sex is so intimate: it teaches empathy on the most primal level.

The final area of non-ordinary experiences I will address is tattooing, body-piercing, branding, scarification, and other such forms of body art. Have you noticed that people who engage in such practices do so, not just for aesthetic reasons, but also for feelings of togetherness, heightened awareness, and euphoria associated with the actual act of receiving the tattoo or piercing? People who undergo such body modifications often describe the spiritual aspects of getting a tattoo or piercing. They are fixated on this aspect, as if the act of getting was as important (or more important) than the act of having.

The truth is: non-ordinary experiences are fuel for creativity and for empathy … those who use the fuel correctly benefit with a dividend of creativity; those who get lost in the euphoria of the moment get only the euphoria of the moment. It is of no lasting benefit to experience the rush of emotions that twenty thousand screaming fans creates, if you don’t recognize what is happening; and the fact that what is happening is happening, simultaneously, (to greater or lesser degrees depending on the individual) to every other human being in the place. Experiencing a new experience only teaches you something if you are willing to learn.

You have to recognize that using drugs, or screaming at hockey games, or singing gospel songs, incites emotions… and these emotions, if powerful enough; can make you (briefly) a different person. With that recognition, you now have the power to accept the different people that you meet.

We all must live in social settings. We are social animals. Non-ordinary experiences can teach empathy, and therefore aid communal living. This is preferable to power-based authoritocracies that exist today. Coercion and threat of force only works to preserve social order on a very small scale, for a very short period of time. Too much coercion, in fact, incites disobedience and disorder.

Baboons perceive this truth. They use empathetic exercises to build community. As a result, in baboon communities, fights are rare… power struggles are rare. The community is structured by mutual consent of all parties. One of the most empathy-building activities in the animal kingdom is one baboon picking the nits off the back of another. We could learn a lesson from that.



PART II: SOME DRUGS IN PARTICULAR

While it is true that all “drug” substances produce altered states of consciousness, some drugs are more popular than others. I will only be able to touch briefly on a few of these. If your interest is piqued, then by all means do your own investigation. www.erowid.org is the best place to start.

Most people in the West become aware of the power of drugs from alcohol. Alcohol serves two purposes in our society.
1. Alcohol is the usual sacrament at both formal and informal initiation ceremonies. Kids drink beer in college to demonstrate their independence from their family group with simultaneously demonstrating their inclusion in the new group. Alcohol is also commonly presented at a number of other initiation rituals: weddings, anniversaries, house-warmings, Bar Mitzvahs, wakes… pretty any time somebody crosses a societal threshold, alcohol is there to hold their hand ‘til they cross to the other side. Even conservative religious observances, like the Jewish Seder and the Catholic High Mass, require alcohol.
2. Alcohol is also the drug most people use for a “social lubricant”. People meet for drinks after work. They drink at tailgate parties, and at the game. They drink at barbeques, on the beach. Whenever there’s a social gathering, alcohol is commonly there. And most people are “social” drinkers, drinking only at initiation ceremonies or social occasions.

The reason alcohol is effective in this way is because of its action on inhibitions. Culture inhibits personal growth and interpersonal behavior through a series of taboos and punishments. Coupled with this are inborn human fears and uncertainties. As a human being is thrust into certain situations, society allows him to inoculate himself against his fear and inhibition with a dose of alcohol. And alcohol generally does the job fairly well. Most people benefit from their relationship with alcohol. They are more relaxed in a social setting. They are less self-conscious. They are more willing to risk danger; or they don’t perceive actions they previously thought dangerous as dangerous anymore… dancing, for example… public speaking for another example.

People often associate excessive alcohol consumption with violence and anger. I think this has to do, again, with the nature of the drug: it removes inhibitions. For, what is the primary inhibition in Western society, if not against displaying anger?

My experience with alcohol has been somewhat mixed. I have what you might call “a procrastinatory nature.” (Is “procrastinatory” a word? Is now!) I always put off the things I couldn’t deal with until a later time. I also don’t like interpersonal conflict. Now, in addition to the usual stressors common to western kids (clean up your room… don’t bug your sister… play nice with the other kids at school… do your homework), I had the additional pressure of being a physically handicapped person. Hydrocephalus; severe kypho-scoliosis, muscle spasticity; 17 major surgeries and counting… I’ve had bouts of meningitis and septic arthritis. By the time I had turned 21, I’d spent a total of 1 497 days in one hospital or another. That’s over a fifth of my life. Lots of negative experiences there to try to avoid, let me tell ya. Added to that, the literally continual conflicts with medical personnel: What treatment methods to accept, which to reject. Whether I should be institutionalized. Whether I would live. My mom once spent a whole day trying to convince various doctors that I was deathly ill. (Turns out I had menigitis). I took it all and crammed it down and pretended like it wasn't a big deal.

Then, as the rite of passage dictates, I drank alcohol, enough alcohol… as it turned out, to overcome my inhibition against feeling and expressing anger. And alcohol made it okay to be angry about all of the things I told myself were “to be dealt with later”. Alcohol created a degree of immediacy, “look, bub… it’s been nearly three decades. You have been putting off dealing with this stuff long enough. Time to fish or cut bait.” That can be a very troubling thing… to find out that you’ve been lying to yourself for a very long time. Also, alcohol does not engender wisdom. It just took 27 years of concealed trauma and dropped it in my lap. “You wanna know why you have nagging unhappiness? Here’s why. Now deal with it!” And if you think I found dealing with each episode in isolation to be difficult, guess how daunting I find dealing with all of it at once? Especially since some of the damage is irreparable. Maybe if I’d “set the bone” properly at the time, it would be different. Now I have complete awareness, thanks to alcohol, what my needs are… but not understanding how to fill them. So yeah, I’d call that a mixed blessing.

Since the invention and proliferation of heroin, opium has certainly gotten a bad rap. This despite the fact that opium is the world’s most effective analgesic. There was a time that opium was revered as a contemplative, sedative, restive drug. But that time is no more. Images of cadaverous, jaundiced junkies scare little children… and their parents… into believing that opium is all bad, all the time. I’m not so sure about that. I can certainly vouch for Oxycontin as a superlative pain-killer. Certainly raw opium is safer for you than either ASA or acetaminophen.

Tobacco is obviously a drug. Unfortunately, its empathetic properties have been all but destroyed by the manufacturing processes that go into making cigarettes. However, before the invention and proliferation of those obscene little cancer sticks, tobacco had significant empathetic effect. I’m told that it was a mild psychedelic as well as a mild sedative. Perhaps these properties combined to aid contemplation. Recall that the natives used tobacco in “peace-pipe” ceremonies. If it was just arbitrary, why not smoke some other herb… or why not pass around the “peace buffalo steak”? The “peace roast elk flank”? The “peace bannock and elderberry jam”? Also, Southern gentlemen often smoked cigars and drank bourbon to socialize after a meal… just as English gentlemen smoked cigars and drank brandy. Thus, we have two wildly disparate cultures (Native American and European) using the same herb for exactly the same reason (promoting peace and fraternity). Also, nearly all intellectual revolutions in the past two hundred years had coffee (more on coffee in a bit) and tobacco at its heart. Arbitrary decisions do not survive. And tobacco has survived. It’s even survived being perverted.

Coffee… how do I love thee! Coffee stimulates both mind and tongue. One of the ironic things about the character Will Hunting in the movie Good Will Hunting is, even though he was extremely knowledgeable, he was ignorant of the effect of coffee has as an aid to conversation. His romantic interest, Skylar, invites him on a date… suggesting they meet for coffee some time. “How about we share a bowl of caramels instead”, he proclaims flippantly, “It’s just as arbitrary as meeting over coffee, isn’t it?” Actually, William, it isn’t. The reason that coffee houses of the Enlightenment were centers for learning, and the birth-places of radical ideas, was not because they were merely houses. They were places were coffee was consumed. Coffee has the same affect of disregarding inhibitions (mostly the inhibition to be considered foolish), as alcohol, but for a different reason. It overwhelms inhibition. It so fills your head with ideas that you simply have to express them. This is also why coffee pairs so nicely with a sedative like tobacco… or, as the Dutch have it, cannabis. The caffeine incites conviction, and the nicotine or the cannabinoids encourage contemplation.

Cannabis Sativa and Indica: the useful Indian herb. While I use medicinal marijuana to treat chronic pain, and the depression arising from that pain, I would have to say that cannabis is primarily a recreational drug. What do I mean by that? I do not mean that it is all fun times and frivolity. Rather, what I mean is that cannabis recreates that which is destroyed or degraded. It is not simply a healer; it is a cognitive reconstructionist.

The creative power of cannabis is really without parallel. Just do a little test. Go to your music collection. Now pick out the most original, the most innovative, the most creative, artists you have. I’ll lay you odds that they smoke[d] pot. Any field of human endeavor… the sciences, the arts… is peopled by pot-smokers, both historical and modern. And not just anybody either: Baudelaire… Rabelais… Dumas… Shakespeare… Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Primus; also Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking… the list goes on and on and on.

Also, we must not neglect the action of psychedelics like absinthe, peyote, amanita muscaria and psilocybin mushrooms, LSD and the like. I can’t tell you how these things work exactly… what their individual effects are. I’ve never had the opportunity to partake of any. But it seems hard to argue that hallucinogens do not alter our perceptions of reality!

Despite my ignorance on the matter, I must say that the idea of hallucinogens is terribly humbling. We have such conceit to believe that what we perceive, is all there is to perceive. The visible light spectrum is not all there is to see. Do you know, for example, that certain birds can see ultra-violet? Seriously. Pit vipers “see” infrared. My dog quite readily grasps realities that I don’t. A car’s coming! No, there isn’t! Yes, silly human, one is… see? My dog can smell the presence of cats, mice, foxes where I can detect no such presence. Of course, she also gets neck-deep in dead cow that has been stewing in the summer sun for a week or more… so, yeah, we perceive things differently. Nature is filled with creatures that perceive reality in ways that we have never experienced. Put another way, nature is a more complete reality that we understand. And hallucinogens eloquently underline that fact.

The world is filled with psychoactive substances, everything from Alcohol to Zacatechichi. I don’t have the space to explore each of them. Suffice it to say, all psychoactives are different from each other, and they affect and interact with people differently. Just like people.


PART III: SEXUALIZING THE SHOWING OF AFFECTION STUNTS EMPATHETIC GROWTH

What is the primary way that people interact? Through touch. Bet ya thought I was going to say ‘sight’, didn’t you? Nope. A person can be a quadriplegic in a wheel chair, and yet they still need human touch. Listen to people describe emotions. They are not smellings or hearings, or tastings, or seeings. An emotion is a feeling. How are you feeling today? Do you feel good or feel not-so-good? Our sense of well-being, our sense of self, is largely tactile. Any time somebody has an especially memorable experience, they will generally express what they felt, for what they felt will leave the biggest impression on them. Watch people around sculpture. People love touching sculpture. Even if the sculpture is cordoned off… people wanna touch it. And now you know why: because a human never really owns something or believes something until they touch it.

That is why strictures against touch are so cruel and inhuman. Western society has sexualized touch. In the Victorian era, extramarital and premarital touch (not sex, mind you, but touch) was forbidden. At the time, this had the temporary effect of strengthening pair bonds. Because people poured all of their affection and their curiosity into their mate. Eventually, as touch became more sexualized, even that area became taboo. Therefore our taboos against affection have the net effect of weakening pair bonds, because affection is essential. Everybody requires affectionate touch all the time, regardless of their conditioning. Denying that fact does not change it. Sublimating our needs does not erase them.

You know that bonoboes, chimps, gorillas (all of the great apes, in fact) have to touch one another, or they become neurotic? They’ve shown that bonoboes are especially susceptible to this. Bonoboes in isolation will so compulsively groom themselves, that they will tear their own hair out. In fact, most creatures in nature touch to strengthen their communities. I think of my horses in the field. One was a gelding, the other, a mare. Before the gelding died, the two of them were always touching. Obviously, there’s no sexual component, because one is a twenty-seven year-old mare, and the other was a twenty-five year-old gelding. You can’t get much less sexual than that! They’d stand in the field, left shoulder to right shoulder, heads lolling across their partner’s back: ‘hey buddy, how’s it going?’ ‘just great… you?’ ‘spiffy, thanks for asking…’

In fact, I can’t think of a social animal that doesn’t constantly touch the members of its group. Snuggling, nuzzling, cuddling, nibbling, stroking, there isn’t an animal that doesn’t do this… from domestic puppies sleeping soundly in a dog pile, to a hyena caring from her den sister’s cubs, to dolphins in a pod... there are more examples then there is space to document them. How much more so humans, with our opposable thumbs and hands built for grasping, feeling, touching!

Whether you believe in evolution or not (I don’t), you cannot fail to see the significance of the fact that all of our fellow mammals are affectionate. If that is how we evolved, how can we deny our heritage? If that is how we were created, how can we deny our programming?

The Greeks identified four kinds of love: love based on blood relations, love based upon friendship, love based upon lust, and love based upon underlying intellectual principles. Western society has obliterated all other loves, save for Eros. Moralists say that touch is erotic, and we shouldn’t do it; and libertines say that touch is erotic, so touch everybody and have sex with everybody… full steamy ahead!

Neither position is correct. The truth is: most affection is NONSEXUAL! Pop quiz: two men in central Africa are walking down the street, side by side, hand in hand. Are they lovers? If you guessed yes… the answer is: probably not. You see, people in a number of African cultures believe that people in conversation should hold hands. People can show affection without a sexual component. In fact it is necessary to show nonsexual love to our friends.

I’ll put it this way. Human beings are luminous beings, made up of spirit and flesh. That spirit inside of us, that we generate spontaneously, requires an outlet. Do you know what happens to an electrical generator that is not hooked up to an electrical power grid? It gets overloaded. It damages itself. It can even destroy itself! Human beings must exchange energies. They must. If they don’t, they become frustrated. They become damaged. Look at what is happening in the world today. That is true perversion. The Black Eyed Peas asked “Where is the Love?” I’ll tell you. It has been destroyed because people were never allowed to show it.

Peace is not born from the absence of hate. To the contrary, it is born from the overflowing of affection. Furthermore, as far as empathy goes, I firmly believe that you can never truly understand how a person feels… until you have experienced ‘how they feel’.


PART IV: CONCLUSION

Our five senses, the method through which we comprehend the world, do not reveal the only reality out there. With this knowledge, can it be so great a leap to assume that others with our five senses also perceive the world differently then we do? Everybody is an individual, with individual perceptions. Even identical twins perceive the world differently from each other. And the more you investigate, the more you learn this to be true. We are all individual, and yet connected. The ruling classes of this world have it backwards. They tell us we are interchangeable and yet isolated. The question you have to ask yourself is, ‘are they telling us that for our benefit?’

Reality is transitory and subjective. The sun is shining, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the birds are singing. There, I’ve created a reality for you… with no other stimulus than just some words on a page. Can you feel the warmth; hear the birds; smell the air (which don’t exist, save for some words on a page)?

Now imagine that, in such a day, that you have discovered that you have lost somebody dear to you. See how your perception changes? I remember the day of my Grandma’s funeral. Looking back, it was a beautiful summer day. But I did not perceive it thus at that time. My perception was that the sun was oppressively hot, and overly bright. I remember being vaguely aware that the day was a perfect day for a picnic… but the last thing I wanted to do that day was have a picnic! My cousins and my friends were all there. But none of us wanted to play ball. A week earlier, we would have… a week later, probably. But not on the day of my Grandma’s funeral, even though it was perfect for it. You see? Perspective shifts, according to all of the factors involved in creating the reality.

People say that it is unnatural to take drugs, that it is unnatural to show affection. Let’s pause for a second and consider. What can be more natural then either of those? Even a person in a wheelchair, blind and deaf, must consume and touch. Also, isn’t there some latent hypocrisy there? I’m always amused by the people who say things like “if God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings”. Um… if God wanted us to drive, he would have given us wheels. If God didn’t want us to be naked, we would be born clothed. If God wanted us to be sheltered, he would have given us a roof over our heads. Don’t make assumptions about God wants, especially since he created all of the many psychoactive plants in the world, and since all affection originates with him.

Finally, do you think that anybody that believes we should drill for oil in pristine Alaskan wilderness, or use depleted uranium weapons against civilians, or drive polluting vehicles, has any right to pontificate on what is “natural”? I don’t.

I have watched people in the world proclaim perversion as natural. I have watched them isolate and imprison their fellows. I have witnessed all manner of villainy and depredation. I have to say something about it before I go crazy.

So, what now? I don’t want to come off sounding like a Hallmark card… as all appeals to sentiment generally do. I guess the thing I want to leave you with, the one thing I want you to remember is that you cannot learn empathy from isolation. So get out there.

Connect. Discover. Be.

 

LightMeUp19

This is honestly one of the best articles on any subject I have ever read. I never realized the value of weed beyond recreational purposes until I read this. Now I realize that it is also something you can use to stimulate creativity and progressive thought. Awesome post!

SevenLeafs

I do believe that empathy exists and I totaly agree with you in that it is a learned "behaviour", or rather, "ability". If we are sufficiently open minded, we can sense other people's feelings, but really sense them, and I believe that the start of it all comes from body language.

You see, many trained psycologists, and some not so trained as myself, can tell if a person is lying, telling the truth, felling depressed, etc. etc. just by what their body is saying, or rather screaming, out loud. But I have noticed, on some instances, that not only can we "see" that, but we can also feel it. Just to put an example, when a person lashes out at you with anger, you can feel their rage as well as you can see their rage, you can tell just by looking at that person that s/he is extremely angry, but if you pay close attention, you will see that you can also feel the rage.

You find yourself sort of "attacked" mentaly by that anger, and therefore, your body starts to produce various chemicals so that you can counter that anger (adrenaline for example). You instantly react to that person's actions because you are aware of what they represent, but I believe that it has also a lot to do with intuition.

If we go to the definition, you will see (I hope) what I mean:

intuition, knowledge discerned directly by the mind without reasoning or analysis; a truth or revelation arrived at by insight; the power or capacity to percieve truth without apparent reasoning or concentration.

I've always believed that those "hunches" we get from time to time are more than just that. I believe that that is the mind speaking to your body, letting it know that something has happened and deserves your attention. I have put this in practice and to be honest, I believe that it has never failed me.

To put an example, I was once taking a joy ride (toking and driving around) with a friend and we smoked a J. I stopped the car near a house because I didn't want to keep on driving and risking our health, and we stayed near the car, listening to some music. We were there for about half an hour (more or less) and everything was fine, but then my friend turned to me and said "hey, don't you think we should get moving?", but I didn't pay attention and told him that I thought we could stay for a few more minutes (I was still pretty wasted). Not 2 minutes had passed and the cops arrived, needless to say, we were wasted, had some Mj in the car..... you know the drill.

I'll remember that example for the rest of my life. One minute we were ok, chilling, and the other, my friend suddenly starts to freak out and cops arrive. When I asked him later, he told me that he "just had a hunch and wanted to get moving".

I'll come back later, after I've read the whole thing, and elaborate on this empathy issue, I just love how the mind works

Peace.7L

__________________

"A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit"
- Pink Floyd -

Just say KNOW!