I took a spritzer of LSD at a party a few weeks ago. I was dancing in the fog with the lights and the beats and had a strange feeling. I wasn’t sure what it was. I sat with it a bit longer…What is this strange feeling? And then I landed on it - I was experiencing a death: the death of my ambition. All the people in the room, most of us middle-aged, dancing to songs from our younger years…there was a dissonance with ambition..what on Earth is next for us? Is it too grim to consider?
I see the ambition in my daughter. She has a drive to achieve, to contribute, to do something important. Even at six, this is evident. I have known this lens my entire life. I let it down during Shelter-in-Place as many people did - but then I picked it up again. It is how I know what to do. I get super clear about what I want and then I set out, step by step, to achieve it. I am so good at postponing pleasure for the rigor of the now. But what happens when you know that whatever comes next is probably not as awesome as what is here now? It gets hard to muster the ambition, especially when you have been around the block and have experienced that things you want often don’t feel the way you expect.
But curiosity...curiosity doesn’t pull you from the now and ask you to sacrifice for an uncertain future. Curiosity asks you to be willing to improvise with whatever comes. You do need to keep moving down the road one way or another. You do need to employ some strategy. But can’t you employ strategy by asking, ‘Hmm…I wonder what will happen if I do this…or that?’ Without a sense of urgency or need, your future and your observations are more honest. Without the weight of a strong agenda that says, ‘It must be like this or else…’ you can more easily try things. Plus you don’t have to do it with a sense of desperation. Not with an ‘I will be okay if I can achieve this next milestone…’
I don’t want to miss my now. I am 49. I am cresting my hill. I want to get a kick out of whatever is to come, but I don’t want to hold my breath to get there.
Curiosity...I can live with that. I can live from that. That makes sense. That doesn’t feel delusional like ambition does these days.
Socrates said ‘Know Thyself.’ Well, the self is always changing. Psychedelics help you know yourself right now. You let go of who you thought you were and are again left wondering who you might be. To be reborn in middle age into your now is the gift of the intentional psychedelic journey. With fresh eyes, you see your habit as separate from you. What is left without my ambition? Hmmm…maybe curiosity.