So walking along the beach, amid the sand-dollars, jelly fish, pretty sea shells and whatnot, I came across starfish. It was low tide and that starfish had been washed pretty high up on the wet sandy beach. So I picked it up and it was still alive, so I walked towards the surf, which was pretty far back, tossed it in there (like the good, virtue-signaling believer in the golden rule that I am), and then, naturally for me, I wondered, what the hell am I doing, interfering, as if to do some godlike act and save the starfish’s life?
It reminded me of when I was a kid (oh, seventeen or so), tripping with my friend Ted. We were walking through Washington, DC at night, and it was snowing, absolutely beautiful. I walked up to a bush, and I got close, to look at the snow gathering on the leaves. So close I noticed my breath was melting the snow. And I thought, oh, yeah, it was so excruciatingly fascinating to watch my hot breath melt the crystals off a bunch of leaves. And then suddenly the thought shot through me, oh my God, now it has to freeze up all over again! – I felt terrible.
(It’s one of the dangers I have with tripping, that the slightest thing can make me go plummeting into a depressive state, hopeless, and then after a bit I come out of it and back into the bliss of pure beauty, and then back down after another anguished train of thought, up and down and up and down.)
Oh, what is our role here on this planet? Just to survive? Do we have only to exist? Are we a keystone species? Might we consciously evolve? It’s just like a trip to ping back and forth between thoughts like these. Now there’s something with which to consciously ritual…