denseWorm said:
DoomyMcDoom said:
Definitely not sheltered. I have lived in Germany and Belgium though never Amsterdam (can't stand the accents) but I have visited the country a number of times. I've also lived in about half a dozen other countries around the world, some of which have even more freedom for potheads than Amsterdam (Beijing just doesn't enforce laws very much, especially on pimply teen foreigners in those grungy bar streets that seem to spring up in cities with large populations of expats)
I've had low points in my life, but I've never needed marijuana to make them 'bearable', and I cook every night, have had exhibitions (admittedly small and collaborative, but surely that means I'm creative) in multiple cities of my artwork and I play the piano very well - I spend most of my day listening to and thinking about music thanks to my iPod.
In my post above I go to great - admittedly badly written and needlessly argumentative - pains to state that I am not calling people idiots for taking drugs, I'm just calling them annoying. I get along fine these days and it's been a long time since my daily conversation circles have degenerated into debates on weed.
I'm pretty sure that if you hadn't decided to be the only one of a number of posters to quote me in an even manner then you might have cheerfully written something of an entirely different, potentially 'annoying' nature on this thread already. . . or not...
Annoying might be too brief a word to put on it, but I know what it means to be experienced, understanding and at piece with your situation, and you don't need weed to attain it - and when you have attained it, you shouldn't have to traipse around town preaching about your methods.
I've met my fair share of people who think they have no way out or think they are at rock bottom, even people who might tell stories about genuine personal loss, and I can claim parity with just about any of them in the 'hard knocks' stakes, but I never needed drugs to deal with my issues, I have my own methods, and as such I can truly claim to be the 'Captain of my ship', sans dope.
I haven't really cared about potheads for years now, because I've kept them from being a big part of my life - or else met friends who are too polite to discuss their social habits openly with me, I just added the word 'thankfully' in my original post on this thread then responded when someone typecast me for saying it.
I can understand that some people who are obsessed with their pot smoking lifestyle can be annoying, I know a few people like that, mainly because they identify themselves entirely by what they smoke, I'm sure you've had your bad times too, anyone who's actually experienced life has, I never said I "needed" it, but it made life a lot easier to cope with, only started using it at the end of a long hard road, and it helped a lot, also, by the way, using a crutch isn't a sign of weakness when you have a broken leg. I've been through a lot and even at the point where I was practically starving to death(I was pretty much eating a bowl of rice a day tops, maybe something else if it was given to me), I was supporting others off of my labours before feeding myself with the scraps(cuz rice is cheap), I just happened to know some people who grew the stuff, and when your entire life is pain, it can be nice to have something to aleviate that.
Now, when you speak of being "the captain of your own ship" if you think that a mild substance like marijuana controls a person, you must only know really weak people, because although it is habbit forming, the same thing can be said for a person who eats a certain thing often enough, it becomes a comfort, if you drink coffee regularily for instance, you have a stronger addiction/habbit than someone who smokes marijuana periodically.
Also friends that don't mention their social habbits, cannot be considered friends, a person whome you know little about is an aquaintance, a buddy, maybe a chum, but not a friend.
Also, the only reason I even posted in this thread originally, was because I found your projected attitude to be offensive to me, I gave the OP some advice on the subject out of consideration for the thread's topic.
Thing is, I do practice meditation regularily which helps with a lot, but when I experience certain kinds of pain, known as phantom pain, or ghost pains, in regions of my body where I've suffered nerve damage due to severe injury, nothing stops it until my brain either decides to realize that my leg hasn't been cut off, and it's just remembering the nerves don't connect, or I'm under the influence of something of a psychoactive nature, and out of all of the things that can work for it, I have the choice of morphine(doesn't always work, highly addictive, can kill me), heroine(highly addictive, can kill me), or marijuana(physically impossible for me to OD on, has almost no side effects).
I'm not sure if you've ever had a limb severed or partially severed, because even if the wound closes, and the muscle tissue and flesh are reconnected, quite often you get huge nerve damaged areas where the nervous connections don't re-mesh, sometimes, it doesn't have that problem, sometimes it does, and it's a sharp constant pain, it's not fun, and even though I can force myself to just "deal with it" I'd rather not if I can avoid it, life is short, and I've already been through enough, I'd rather have something to help me where I can get help, and try and live a life in which I can be productive, and even while I was smoking every single day without fail I washolding down two jobs, and doing extra work on top of it, I found my thoughts clearer and easier to focus on while high than while sleep deprived and in constant pain.
Also, maybe it helps me creatively because I'm normally a highly analytical, person, I have a hard time opening up creatively, might be because of my past, no matter what I did my art was "wrong" or "not good enough" I've always been good at cooking tasty food, but it was almost always straight forward, I like experimentation, but I rarely bother with it unless I have the drive or inspiration to bother with it, and when my mind is constantly wrapped up with figuring things out, or solving 10 other people's problems, I don't get that, after smoking a small quantity of marijuana I find that the repressed part of my brain just fires itself up, I get a rush of creative ideas across a variety of mediums.
Now, musically I played classical piano, for 8 years, during which time everyone loved my playing, except my parent, who couldn't care less, and treated it as a meaningless trivial thing, and due to family infighting, I lost access to the piano I used daily, and pianos aren't exactly cheap, being an impovrished individual, doesn't contribute well to buying anything but the basics, I haven't had a new pair of shoes in 3 years, and the last pair of pants I got was a christmas present 2 years ago, because I'd worn through my other pants to the point where the seams were just falling apart.
So I don't find people with the "I'm better than all these weak idiots" attitude towards anyone using anything, I've been there, I've lived in that shit for my entire fucking life.
This year, I finally made it out of the hellhole I was stuck in for so long, maybe, just maybe I can lead a more normal life, I bloody well hope so, cuz I'm down to a netbook(got for free), my bass guitar(present from a friend for my birthday, not an expensive instrument, but it works, don't have an amp for it, and I can't tune it propperly), and a handful of clothes.
And you know what helped me get to this point? Marijuana, know how? It gave me the clarity of thought required to see just that much farther out of the gloom that I'd been living under for so long, I sold pretty well everything I owned at the time, which wasn't much, but it was enough to ditch town and find a new place to start over.
If you want to pass judgement on people for any reason go ahead and do it, just do it with a bit of knowledge about them and their lives, not everyone has the kind of life you do, not everyone was brought up the same way, and not everyone has the same strengths and weaknesses as you.
![Violator[xL]](https://eg-forums-escapist-data-bucket.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/24/24558.jpg?1620210777){kind=avatar}
