Looping . . . Loopy . . . and the Grateful Dead

I'm not really writing about the Grateful Dead, I'm writing about potheads. I don't want to waste time trying to come up with a more politically correct term for someone who regularly gets themselves high. To me, they are potheads, although I no longer have a negative connotation for these people or this word. When I was in high school, potheads were burnouts, no-good, going nowhere. I remember Wayne and Natasha, both burnouts. Actually, I was friends with them both, but I still had a certain prejudice towards them. Actually, as a youngster, I respected their assault on convention and the statis quo. For them, I think, smoking dope was a form of rebellion against an oppressive and overly rule-bound world. I still respect this atttitude, although nowadays I am always on the lookout for peeps who make such a statement, not because they believe the principles behind the statement, but because it's cool to do, which makes the statement just another form of submission to peer pressure and identification with a particular peer group.

Counterculture --

I guess counterculture has never really been about anything new and novel, just different. When I think of the thousands of hippies in the 60's, my parents being a few of them, I realize that those thousands of folks, maybe even millions, in fact, probably millions, were not all about novelty and newness, but just about identifying with something different. You can't have millions of pioneers; there is inevitable overlap, and I suppose even counterculture develops rules and mores that must be abided by. That is, I'm sure that a banker dressed in a navy blue suit, with starched white shirt with nicely coifed hair would not be welcomed into a hippie enclave. He doesn't fit the exterior mold of what a hippie should be, so, even within counter-culture, there is a price for admittance. You must look the part. I'm not really talking about potsmokers here, but I suppose in order to be part of the burnout culture, you have to rebell against society in a certain manner, smoke dope, take drugs, and without this, you are not admitted. So, in any culture, there is the price of conformity.

Aaarrrgghh -- I feel for my students. Yet another "loop" and I dont see anything of interest to me above. Maybe it's because I move too quickly to resolution. So, for example, above, I was writing about potheads, moved to counterculture, and then directly to the realization that even counterculture require coformity. What now? What nmow? What now? now? now ? red?resd?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red?red/redd?red?red/red?redd/re?red?red?red/red?red/red/reD?

okay, do people have a natural desire to alter their own state of consciousness? This is the beauty of smoking weed, an altered state. The same is true of drinking alcohol, an altered state. Smoking cigarettes. Drinking Coffee. Running and exercise. Travel to bew and exciting places. Sex. Driving really really fast, buying new clothes. and on and on. all of these things alter our state of consciousness. Pot smokers just choose a rather quick and reliable means of doing so. Are we all so unhappy with who and what we are, how we are under normal circumstances? I wonder. Or maybe there is something even more fundamental than that that drives us to alter our consciousness? It doesn't have to be a negative thing, like discontentedness, but maybe just a natural human drive, like procreation or eating, that compels us to do so.

last loop. good night and good luck.