blog 9

For some reason it blows me away that "we" have managed to target the part of brain that induces creativity. There is an area where musical and visual abilities develop...?..if you have frontotemporal dementia, then you are more likely to be creative. Why is it that the artists are always the demented, weird, drug addicted ones...? Although I resent the stereotype, i guess it comes from somewhere.
What stood out to me the most in Chapter 11 was its title, "Ways to Creativity" It seems that some people are just naturally creative and others not so much. I guess it is proven anyway so why question it, right? I've been around a lot of creative people. I can say that from my experience, creative people are just kinda that way. It is like a way of thinking, its not just about a visual or performing art either, its about all ways of thinking. It seems like an artist or creative person is that way because of the way they think, naturally.
And then comes the next chapter....
I think that there is a very fine line between the experimenting w/ altered states for expanded creative awareness and teetering on the edge of danger.
There is no doubt that drugs enhance, expand and alter your consciousness.
My biggest wonder is why is it that in some cultures drugs become drugs of abuse?
It is most interesting that for some people its a short lived experiement, while for others it becomes a way of life.
Some practices like the ones we read about in Castaneda's book, stay w/in a culture and remain sacred, while others dont.
SOme drugs while introduced to one culture remain in control while in another, it becomes some horrible epidemic.
Is it the media, giving us our ideas and ways to think? Can an entire culture be that dependant on outside ways to feel better?
The Field answered some of these questions for me.
Avital Ronell talks about Heroin addiction in this chapter as a trash body, not in relation to any spiritual consciousness.
W. Burroughs refers to addiction as the enemy and the junk as its means of infection.
Its hard to correlate some of these drugs to a spiritual experience when the outcome is so negative.
I have seen this though, when these experiences take you to death and back; the way its talked about it the book. The result is a deeper level of spirituality. One that maybe cannot be found in the drug itself, but only in absence of the drug.