bliss

Classroom conversations of recent days remind me that many students are intrigued by the metaphysical possibilities they imagine (or claim) can be found in deliberately-altered states of consciousness. It was ever thus. William James shared the feeling, but finally resisted the lure of his own experiments in psycho-pharmacology and creative dentistry (catalyzed by the "subjective effects" of nitrous oxide, which btw is apparently a leading cause of ozone depletion). 

James: "It is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what in its totality is so degrading a poisoning." Varieties of Religious Experience 

Eric Weiner has a lighter take on the subject, in his Geography of Bliss. His experience in a Netherlands "hash cafe" is very funny, and this observation seems right to me:

...at least half the fun of engaging in illicit activity is the illicit part and not the activity part. In other words, smoking hash legally in Rotterdam is not nearly as much fun as doing it illicitly in your college dorm room with Rusty Fishkind, knowing that at any moment you might get caught.

Still, though, he wonders: "What if I felt like this all of the time. Wouldn't I be happy all of the time?"


Depends on what "happy" means. I'm teaching Happiness 101 again next Fall, this time exploring the premise that there might be some secret or key to happiness. Is it simply a matter of chemical re-engineering?