Different Realities
“I like experiencing different realities, but prefer not to take drugs. Temping is the next best thing.”
I wrote this today to intellectually justify the fact that I am temping. It reminded me that it was about a year ago that I was on morphine, in hospital, recovering from having my appendix removed. Morphine gives one an incredible clarity, all the petty concerns of life fade away and you can focus on the things that matter. I can quite understand Pete Doherty’s negatively capable fascination, revealed in Simon Hattenstone’s interview:
I ask him whether he thinks life is better with or without drugs. “Yeah. yeah. Course it is.” Better without? “No, it’s better with or without.” He fails to give a straight answer. Perhaps he’s incapable of doing so. Both? “Yeah, course. I think some people’s lives would be ruined with drugs and some would be dramatically improved with drugs. Anything that’s going to move them from the fucking middling state they’re in, whether it’s a cup of coffee or a snowball up your jacksy, I don’t know.”
Nick Lezard’s piece on cocaine is similarly ambiguous.