Yeah, I really don't get what's with all these Data-from-Star-Trek style discussions of drugs and emotions and love. I couldn't believe this was the top comment... who on Earth is using reason and logic to fall in love?
What a load of bullshit. It saddens me to see this as the top comment.
Things said while under the influence of any drug mean nothing? Everything you say is stripped of meaning? Hmm, alright. You know that sleep deprivation produces an intoxicated state that is, by many measures, nearly identical to drunkenness? Hope you never said anything important without your full 9 hours! Ever said anything important under a state of stress? While angry? Depressed?
I know HN loves the idea that everything is a binary black and white, but reality couldn't be further from that. Sure, if your friend is experimenting with ketamine and claims that you're a time traveling dragon and he must eliminate you, you should probably get a second sober opinion. But stuff like MDMA? Especially for safe doses (which is the only way people should consume MDMA in my opinion) you're not someone else, you're just you, but more empathetic and loving.
Not to mention that love is the opposite of a rational decision for many people. I'm sure people in SF find optimized partners to save on rent and DINK their way up the capitalist ladder, but in the rest of the world love is often the opposite of rational. Imagine falling in love as a poor girl with no access to birth control: near suicide for your future. Heck, I'm an educated white male in a first world country and I 'threw away' a year of my life chasing love and it was awesome and hell yeah I'd do it again today. If I tossed it into a spreadsheet I'd never have done it.
So yes, drugs are intoxicating. But so are a shit ton of other things. Life is life: you do things when you're angry, tired, horny, happy, drunk, and hell yes, it all means something!
I lived and worked in Europe and I still feel that people need a hell of a lot more nothing in their lives. If you're curious about my perspective, it's downthread, same username.
In theory, I was studying, and working on building a few things, but I never did much of either. I rented a spot in an old warehouse in the countryside for $100 a month and decided to build myself a sort of tiny home inside there. It started out rough; I won't forget freezing on the concrete floor those first few nights, wrapped in one of those foil survival blankets.
The winter left quickly, and with it the last of my ambitions. I'd do a bit of work, here and there, but doing nothing was my primary occupation. I would lay in fields and watch horses in the distance, I would sit on the side of a stream and rest my feet in it. One of my favorite activities was to bike to the nearest town about a half hour away and buy ice cream, lying in the grass and tearing into it like a child.
Biking was always great fun. I would bike with no purpose, simply being free. There is no greater feeling than cruising the countryside with the wind in your hair and absolutely no idea of where you will go that day.
Occasionally a horse would match me for the length of its pasture. I got the feeling that the horses dreamed of my bike as a child dreams of wings.
Things always seemed to just work out. When my bike gave out, the friendly locals were happy enough to give me rides until I fixed it with some rope I found. When the seasons again changed and my tiny home grew colder I was offered a free room in a lovely old farmhouse.
But as the snow returned so did my ambitions. I planned to finish months of work in days, then grew frustrated when I didn't. I grew crazier and crazier and at the end neglected all reason. Eventually, I accepted the advice of a local and decided to move to the city, get an apartment, and find work as a programmer. I did all of these quickly. The apartment lasted; the job did not. After so long doing nothing, I found myself nearly unable to work, paralyzed.
The next year I continued to do nothing. I had a flash of ambition, but it was quickly interrupted by falling in love early in the year: a beautiful girl far, far out of my league. We fled our responsibilities to the south of France. Perhaps the best single week of my life was there with her doing nothing: lying in the sun, swimming naked in the sea, smoking a joint on the windowsill, watching the boats go by.
We spent a wonderful year together, but the winter came as it did before to drive ambition: this time not mine but hers. We separated.
Now I find myself a normal programmer. Like most people here, I do an awful lot of something and get paid well for it. But you can bet that once I've stashed up enough of those paychecks my schedule will have a lot more nothing on it.