From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past (Part 46) Thoughts, The Ultimate Seduction Date: 1996/12/11 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard THE ADVENTURES OF SMACKS PAST (PART 46) Thoughts, The Ultimate Seduction I mentioned in the last few stories that one of the things I've worked with as a result of exploring the "limits" of my own internal system, was stopping thought. This is not a new subject. It's been around about as long as, well...thought! Probably the first person that ever thought anything for the first time, must have wondered after awhile, "boy this thinking process is sure neat, but shit, how do you turn the damn thing off when you want?" Is that even possible? Can it be done? What would be the point? What's that going to do as far as breaking addiction to hard drugs is concerned? Come to think of it, there are a thousand questions one could ask oneself. Also, come to think of it, the questions are all...YUP you guessed it...THOUGHTS! How about that? Okay here are a few more salvos, to soften us up a bit. In the ordinary, everyday normal state, there is an unbroken stream of thought going through your brain. Unless there is something real specific that you need to "think about," the damn thing runs by itself. Even a good biologist will tell you that thoughts are bits of electrical energy. Synapses firing, over and over again. The sum total of your thought landscape, along with emotions and physical sensations, more or less defines who and what we are. Shit, we've all heard this stuff before, right? I know I did. So what's the point, even I'm asking myself? It's this. In between each and every thought, there's space. A lot of space even. You could say that there is a large vast space that's usually occupied with all these damn thoughts. I'm sure I don't need to give us examples of the kinds of thoughts that we all have. Hell, we've all got the same brains. "Well, c'mon Giz, get to it already. " Okay, I'm getting there, it's just that I not only have to grab a hold of a few good "thoughts," to express it, but I also have to type out the corresponding words to put it into my computer so that someone else can read this, god forbid, think about it even, then attempt to make sense out of it, see the connection to their own brain and possibly get a bit o mileage out of it. What a deal. Okay, if we can spend enough time observing all our little thoughts, we will begin to notice their vampire like nature. It's not a new concept, but we don't usually hear that too often. Thoughts are like vampires? Sure enough, sort of. Actually the thoughts themselves are harmless enough, but the automatic attention that we give to them, turns them from little harmless electrical pulses of energy into blood sucking vampires. We get identified with them! Who gets identified with them? Well, we do. That is, the part of us that wants something different to happen. Like the part of us that would like to put an end to years of shooting heroin or cocaine, or whatever. We all know the drill. It goes something like this. "Shit, I'm pretty hooked on smack. Or, I've tired to quit, but can't seem to do it. Or, damn I wish I could score another shot. Or, I'm just a dope fiend and that's all there is to it. Or, I love dope and don't ever want to stop doing it." Etc., etc., etc., etc. Add a thousand similar thoughts like this, going on in our brain, give them our automatic attention and guess what you have? Answer__________________. It's all going on right there in our own little universe. The good news is that if we can observe this stuff, really observe it, don't fuck with it, don't try to change it, don't interfere with it at all, just watch it. Then we will start to see the vampire like process that keeps a person being exactly who they are. Of course, that's not the whole story. In the context of addiction to hard drugs, we do have to get through the physical withdrawal stuff as well. But once we've nailed that sucker, then a lot of what happens afterward is going to be determined by how much of our attention we're going to give back to these automatic thoughts running through the system. Give'm enough attention and we "power up" the entire organism. Dwell on them enough and we can start to generate feelings, desires and cravings for drugs again. But we don't have to. And not only do we not have to, but we can "SEE THROUGH," the thought landscape to a very neat and quiet space that feels really good. That's a payoff. We get free of habitual behavior, habitual thought. Not a bad deal. Plus as we get better at focusing our attention on these lovely little thought creatures, we might even be able to stop them sometimes! Well, my thoughts on this are that I hope someone can "read between my thoughts/words," to see where I'm going with this. It's not easy to say it directly, as you might notice. It's not easy to see the connection to just about every damn thing going on internally, but it is there. That's why, like I titled one of my recent adventure stories, it's a "secret that can hide right out in the open." But happy hunting. Copyright Gizmo 1996