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Originally Posted by Nelson Bruce I can definitely sense good intent in your advice, I'm all for respecting my body and treating as my temple - and I definitely follow you - to an extent.
Problems start to arise however, when you admit to never drinking enough to get drunk. Your lack of experience in the subjects shows through.
[...] So my advice to you is to truly go all the way with a substance of your chocie - be it alchohol, tea, blu lotus something illegal or whatever it is you feel would greatly expand your understanding of yourself and the universe.
[...] When you have full experience and knowledge, your wisdom will come from two educated perspectives, then you will have a much stronger basis on which to uproot my logic and my understanding if it is flawed. |
You definitely have a point, Nelson - there is indeed no substitute for experience. But it is my opinion that there are some experiences not worth having – either because of undesirable consequences, the fact that they are not aligned with your personal values, etc. It’s not so much that I believe certain experiences are devoid of value. Quite the contrary, I believe that all experiences hold value – some sort of ‘truth’ that can further your understanding of the nature of reality and “how it all works”. As Fearless says, experiences are inherently neutral; what makes something “good” or “bad” is what we do with it. It’s just that certain experiences may not be completely necessary, but this would generally depend heavily on what one wants to accomplish.
In my above post I openly admit that I personally cannot draw very accurate distinctions about drugs, simply because they are completely outside of my experience. But while I may never know what it is like to be high, drunk, or what insights I may be potentially missing out on by choosing to not experience something in particular, I am ok with that. While I certainly enjoy seeing from multiple perspectives and increasing my understanding of reality, I would enjoy something a whole lot less if it was to in some way violate my personal values and morals. And while I am quite likely to limit the amount of experiences I can have by choosing to act in accordance with my values, I believe this is a reality that one must accept in life.
When we choose to experience certain things, other things may no longer be accessible to us, and occasionally, depending on your beliefs, we don’t even have the choice. For example, some people are born with some sort of vision impairment, and some are even born blind. These individuals may never experience sight (or at least full sight), but because one experience is not available to them (ie. sight), other ones open up that would have previously been inaccessible, or at least, difficult to reach. Blind people, for example, usually make up for their blindness by having heightened hearing, sense of smell, touch, etc. They may be able to perceive certain subtleties with their heightened senses that those with full sight may never experience simply because it is outside of their experience, and possibly even inaccessible to them. It is quite possible for an individual with full sight to deprive him/herself of it to see what it is like to experience the world exclusively through their other senses, but this is a case of something that would generally be undesirable. The experience comes at too great a price, and while this is a rather extreme example, it illustrates my point.
Ultimately, I think we can agree that all experiences are unique, and what makes each of us unique as an individual is the collection of experiences we have had within our lifetime. In terms of the limited knowledge we - as humans - possess, it seems almost impossible to know in advance if a particular experience is absolutely necessary. And who’s to say an experience is “necessary” in the first place? There is literally an infinite amount of experiences one can possibly have, the only limiting factor being how many of these experiences you are actually able to experience during your lifetime (and we don't even know if that is certain! ...depending on your beliefs).
It is my belief that if one is to live their life in accordance with their values and morals, one must be willing to accept that certain things may not be available to them if they are unwilling to undergo certain experiences. I am no exception to that, and I accept this. That said, I think that one of the great challenges in life is trying to experience things that lie within the domain of the “impossible”. Reality will always be the ultimate judge, but if we were to accept the notion that one is able to change their reality with something as simple as their thoughts, do you not become the one who is the “gate keeper” to certain experiences – the one to conquer in order to make further progress in the “game” of life?