Time (kept) on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the (digital) future
Navigating mindfulness from hazy to high tech
© Capitol Records. Photography – Susan McCardle
Reading time: 5 minutes
punditman says…
I was always too lazy to be a true pothead. Whoever said those kids were layabouts had it all wrong. The constant searching, sampling, buying, sharing, selling and talking about a banned substance (getting caught with enough stash would surely ruin one's future) seemed overwhelming to the recreational user.
Then there was the testing of new product among the chosen few while listening to the obligatory Dark Side of the Moon.
Never mind high school, these folks barely had time for Frisbee.
Yet some cohort had to carry the torch passed on by older boomers who’d caught the first clouds of illicit smoke rising out of the volcanic tumult of the late '60s. Why not an army of teenage sales reps in lumber jackets who'd mastered weed's time distortions and short-term memory deficits with great aplomb simply by integrating these effects into their personalities?
It’s (not) only teenage wasteland
© MCA Records, Inc. Photography – Ethan A. Russell
Seemingly immune to the paranoia others sometimes felt, this cotton-mouthed freaky faction had built up a heroic tolerance for THC. Who else to bring the weed to the people? Not your Dad's awkward liberalism. Not even Cheech and Chong.
What were we talking about again? Oh yeah…this resolute obsession with all things pot had "full-time job" written all over it. Personally I'd rather work part-time at the rink.
On the one hand, you had to admire their dedication to the cause.
But I’m reminded of the serious stoners in high school who would spend an inordinate amount of time chatting about the last time they were stoned or where they’d score their next ounce — while they were getting stoned.
If “mindfulness” is the ability to be fully engaged in the present moment, then this embodied quite the opposite: to be constantly dwelling on the past or fretting on the future, causing angst. Not only do you miss out on the present, but you're no fun at parties.
Yes, I’m embellishing for the sake of frivolity. But I'd rather have taken advantage of a good buzz to discuss the brilliant lyrics of Pye Dubois or the possibility that Klaatu really were the Beatles…than have to listen to some dude tell me how Colombian "dumbo" weed got him super buzzed last night, while he exhales that very same ganja into my face.
"Why isn't he at least talking about how high he is now?" I'd wonder.
So much for mindfulness, never mind: mind expansion.
Copyright © United Artists Music And Records Group, Inc. Album artwork – Shusei Nagaoka
The underage drinker had something in common with the stoner: chatting about past exploits while persistently plotting how to get away with the same unlawful task next time. Who had time for “mindfulness” when your minute-by-minute concern was the fact your parents could walk in at any moment and wreck rec-room “happy hour”?
There was enough cross-pollination between the weed and beer sub-cultures that it was no surprise teenage imbibers often stumbled into the same lame trap as stoner speak; engaging in empty-headed discussions surrounding one’s favoured inebriant activity was often top of the agenda.
So there we’d be, down by the creek, or at the end of the lane behind the rink enjoying the affects of the ethanol molecules inside our Labatt Blue “stubbies” — but wouldn’t the evening be even better served if we could talk about something other than how we did this very same thing last weekend?
How so-and-so got whaled was an oft-repeated storyline that got old quickly.
“Yes, he stole the stop sign, but let’s move on from Tim's party shall we? Have you heard the new ELO album?
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
© CBS Records, Epic Records. Photography – Pennie Smith
Perhaps it wasn't so easy to enjoy the boozy mindful moment when the lion's share of your Colt 45 beers were “hidden” in the snow in your friend’s backyard, to be accessed through the basement window, while you and your buddies pretended to believe the parent goblins didn’t notice, and they, in turn, pretended to believe you’d adhere to their pretend two-drink limit. That's a lot of pretending.
“Three Mile Island? Sure, let’s discuss solar and wind versus nuclear…but can you first reach out the window and grab me another cold one?”
Not to get lost in reverie about the high amount of freedom afforded the mid-to-late 1970s teen (luckily for us, insurgent victories against parents and authorities had been won by hippies and greasers several years prior) — nor to endorse all its excesses (even whimsically) — but rather to circle back to the unending human challenge of trying to stay in the moment. While you are constantly running around in habitual and programmed ways, life is indeed happening as John Lennon said: while you're busy making other plans.
Meanwhile wisdom accumulates in fits and starts. Conversations generally improve with more education, less hangovers and less hash oil. People move on with their lives. Times change, for better or worse.
21st century schizoid man
© Island Records, Atlantic Records, E.G. Records. Cover illustration – Barry Godber
It's safe to say that most people would not want to undo the accumulation of knowledge that has led to truly progressive innovations in various aspects of human society in recent decades.
But there is also regression and degeneration all around us.
To cite an ever-present albatross, what would be jaw-droppingly horrifying to the average '70s mind (sober or otherwise) is this layering of screens, devices, and apps we've installed over top our outsourced social sphere. If someone can convince me that, when conjoined with an increasingly pervasive surveillance state, the logical end point amounts to anything other than tracking our every move, influencing our every whim and smothering each and every one of our “wrong thoughts,” then Punditman is all ears!
It's beyond unsettling when you realize that in the name of convenience, distraction and indulgence we've (at least half-wittingly) allowed our brains to be rewired by the gremlins of greed and the ghouls of government groupthink.
So welcome to the machine, this time for real. Is it too late? I don’t know, but I’m nostalgic for a time when such corporate and state overreach would have been met with a collective "Fuck you."
We can still hit pause. We can revisit the past and extract its wisdom. We can practice mindfulness and refrain from fretting about a dystopian future that can only be altered by actively confronting the harsh truths of the present.
But we should always remember: nobody likes a buzz kill.
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Time was when we used to distinguish between the nights you sit around telling stories, and the nights during which those stories were born. I have found myself spending evenings of late telling stories about the time my buddy told this or that great story.
But none of us expected anyone to be listening in or running analytics on our engagement levels. One could make the case that eschewing all those intoxicants would give us a clearer view of things, but it could also be argued that the log in our colective eye is media/news/entertainment-driven a mindless behemoth that diverts us, runs surveillance on us, and even dispatches us. All at once.
All these detailed highly specific late 70s references makes me think you should try writing a coming of age novel set back then. Even though you and I are the same age I didn’t hang out with a stoner crowd in high school and was always so curious about what they talked about. It sounds like you have a lot of insight into that Wayne! On another note I definitely remember thinking how weird it was that there were two distinct groups that had practically nothing to do with each other in high school—those going on to university in the Grade 13 stream, and those not doing that—and how it was largely based not on intelligence but on economic background. It was always this way of course and is even more so in the U.S. but it used to really strike me as unjust.