Hello, sorry, I could not for the life of me remember the password I created for that account, so I had to create and respond with a new one.

For me, psychedelics are a glimpse of where you can go. I specifically remember a reoccuring mental metaphor that came to me... If the possibilities of the human mind/existence/experience can be represented by the whole Himalayan mountain range, then psychedelic drug use was like taking a helicopter ride over the peaks, and being shown a glimpse of what is possible. But every helicopter trip you take, it always ends back down on flat ground, back where you started. Maybe with a lot more perspective, maybe you've been irrevocably changed, but as any psychonaut can attest, the glow doesnt last forever.

If drug use is a helicopter ride, other paths can be compared to trekking up into the mountains, starting at the base, and spending day and night there for years. I remember watching a show about a primitive tribe somewhere near Malaysia. And I remember thinking, they are all tripping. Their entire lives are like a slow trip. Like the myths of old ages, e.g. the hero's quest, these people walked through their experience daily, and it shaped them. If a westerner was dropped in with them, his experience would be nothing short of adapting himself to an entirely new reality. Thats what everyone is doing. Walking through a slow trip. Sometimes, us psychonauts induce a whole new kind of trip than what we are used to, and that will change a person too, but also, we always must return to the slow trip that we find ourselves in, once the ride is over.

There are certain "slow trips" that you can walk that will permanently change you, and bring your base level up much higher than we in western society can dream of. Imagine hopping on a plane tomorrow, landing in a foreign country, and meditating at a mountain top monastery for years. That will change you. That is a slow trip that the individual walks through, and arrives at somewhere new entirely.

I have deep respect for using entheogens for insight. The states of mind I've been producing in myself have been nothing short of magical. But, I've had my fun, I've seen what I will see, and the conclusion that I keep getting led to is that now I must walk. I'm sure there will be future experiences. But for now, sobriety and practice is the path that I will walk.