Acidic Inspiration

While walking around downtown, I noticed a man in an apparent altered state of mind gleefully spraying water from a fountain onto the ground. I surmised that this young man's altered mental state was due to artificial substances, however, what really is the difference between using a chemical-induced aberration, a physio-mental defect, and an altered sensory experience?

I know that I am not the first to make this correlation (a recent Simpson's episode comes to mind), but if all my observations in this journal were unique, it would also be quite empty.

I guess the real question that I should ask is, "Does it really matter?"

I know there are some strong opinions on this subject, but look at it this way … there are a number of down-right lunatics that have been canonized as Saints. Zen is also full of legends of insane monks. It seems to me that people with mental defects are examples to the rest of us rationally-infected humans. Examples of how we could/should be, but also examples that there are other states of consciousness.

Perhaps that is also the "point" of plants that can do this sort of altered-state on a more personal level. Surely Rumi was not advocating a perpetual state of intoxication from wine, but as an example of the kind of intoxication that can come about from within.

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