Drugs and Oranges When you work with teenage boys, it’s almost a given that you’re going to encounter drugs. I’ve long observed the paradoxes, confusions and double messages American culture offers boys about drugs, especially marijuana. Ironically, they are absolutely fascinated with marijuana and its attending culture and they casually dismiss of our society’s vain efforts to control them. No surprise here. What disturbs me the most is the missed opportunity to leverage their fascination into a focus on developing consciousness and awakening a life of awe. “I’m bored,” the fifteen year old said. “There’s nothing to do. I’m depressed and I just don’t care about anything.” The fellow hasn’t smoked marijuana for a couple of weeks and he was crashing. “I don’t have any interest in school, friends, going out, or even eating,” he said. “Nothing really matters.” You’d think I had a major depression case on my hands. What I had was a lost young man who equated the altered state of consciousness experienced with marijuana to being alive. Substances have been used for millennia as ritualistic gateways to deeper levels of consciousness. In traditional cultures, drugs are elements of ritual for entering altered states for the expressed purpose of informing the person who then contributes that learning to his/her society for its betterment. In modern America, drugs are a recreation without a deeper soul purpose. Instead of a foray into “surrounding worlds” to give back to society, they’re merely the pursuit of pleasure to escape the “boredom” of society. So the fellow sat in my office pining for marijuana: the magic herb of life. Dull and listless, he was virtually totally disconnected from a sense of himself and being a part of life. I pulled out a nice, ripe, organic orange from my bag. His eyes barely moved. I peeled a piece of skin off very slowly, releasing the aroma into the office air. His eyes shifted in my direction while his nose twitched slightly. I continued to peel the orange, in no particular hurry. He said, “that smells good.” I answered, “Uh huh” and continued peeling. The boy sat up and looked at me as I placed a section of orange in my mouth and began to chew. Slowly. He repeated, “that smells good.” “Uh huh,” I said again. Then I looked at him and asked, “you’d like a piece?” and he said, “yeah.” As I stood up from my chair and began to walk towards him I said, “just sit there for a minute” and I held the slice of orange under his nose. “Tell me what’s happening to you,” I said. He answered, “my mouth is watering a lot, the smell of the orange is filling me up, I’m tingling inside and I feel more energy.” I asked, “anything else?” and he answered, “it’s funny, I can really smell that orange and I really want to eat it.” I gave him the piece and said, “bite into it slowly and tell me what happens.” He said, “it tastes really good, my mouth is watering even more, the juice is sliding down my throat, and I feel the texture of the orange on my tongue.” “What else?” I asked. Very surprised he answered, “I don’t feel bad anymore. I feel really kind of excited and energetic. Alive. Can I have another piece?” So I gave him one. When he was finished I asked him again, “what happened?” He said, “that’s amazing! Weird. Everything’s different. It’s amazing how much I could smell and taste the orange and how aware I was of everything.” I looked at him and quietly said, “your senses are awake and you’re paying attention. Your mind and body are fully absorbed in eating the orange. You’re not relying on marijuana to give you the illusion of being alive; you are alive and freely awake to it. That is power. You’re born with it and just like muscles and intelligence, you can develop your ability. You can have a lifetime of fascination and discovery instead of boredom and drug dependency. It’s your choice. He smiled and said, “Can I have another piece of orange?” ©2008, Ted Braude Youth is wholly experimental. - Robert Louis Stevenson
|
