Transcendental Café

Sometimes I imagine a future where we could have already mapped out the effects of certain concoctions for our bodies and our minds. Perhaps one day, we will have the hormonal equivalents of cafés where we go to have a meal or a drink laced with the substances that mimic the hormones that correspond to certain moods or mindsets we desire. For example, dopamine, a hormone secreted in high proportions by subjects in a landmark experiment who reported being in love, (Helen Fisher, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, Henry Holt, New York, 2004) could soon lace the cappuccinos and espressos of problematic lovers, giving them a molecular fix for their love-torn lives. Or with our milkshakes, we can get a legal hormonal equivalent of the cannabinoid, which we produce in our brains anyway which bestows on us a sweet forgetfulness of things and make the present, momentary stuff such as the swoosh of a cream on a sundae cone, the swirl of a cloud as you sit on a swing or the flight of birds in the corner of your eye as you drive by and liberate your own thoughts, suddenly and utterly sublime. And the menu need not be limited to beverages. With the known psychoactive members of the Fifth Kingdom, Fungi, gleaned from their gastronomic spells they cast to brew wine and nurture cheese, to the far more hallucinogenic effects of certain mushrooms such as the Amanita that supposedly accompanied ancient Hindu rituals, or truffles which female pigs hunt because truffles give off odor that resemble that of male pig hormones, my imaginary hormonal food court would not run short of culinary saints. The desire to bathe our ordinary lives with extraordinary experiences will always be with us. It is what makes us human. But is the extraordinary experience of the ordinary confined to the mechanisms of hormones and psychoactive brews?

When Michael Pollan wrote in his highly acclaimed book The Botany of Desire (Random House, NY, 2001) that our having tamed the cannabis plant closer to what our bodies was deeply entwined with our human desire to be intoxicated, I think there was some lesson there deeply implied. It is that we humans already know what it is like to be intoxicated even without the whiff of cannabis. That is why we want to conjure it at will with the help of "herbs." In fact, he referred to these as the "gods within" – meaning the gods are already there, fired up by all the things that make us humans feel alive. Remember the fire of falling in love, the searing pain from loss, the overwhelming sense of gratitude to life, of deep awe and wonder at Nature – the very same things that are realized when you come across a thought that startles your mind or encounter an event that cuts deep into your soul. Besides, these substances can also work against our own humanity as Pollan cited history speculating that in the 11th century, a sect under Hassan ibn al Sabbah made his warriors called the Assassins, take cannabis so they could then kill and terrorize Persia without flinching or fearing for their own lives. Although cannabis did probably do this, recent history seems to tell us that sheer language can rouse us to war. A recent article in the New York Times focused on the language of war and how words can feed the spirit of war itself, even without the help of drugs. Even recent findings in neural experiments (Scientific American, December 2003) revealed that the same part in human brains light up when we experience physical pain as when we are socially rejected in the form of hurtful words. It seems we do "die" not only from sticks and stones.

I do not doubt that molecules from a whiff of some psychoactive substance can serve as switches to release some heady conversations with those gods within. That is simple chemistry. What I find truly disappointing is that as Carl Sagan said, these conversations have yet to stand daylight scrutiny, long after the whiff blends with normal, everyday things – the breakfast to be prepared, the assignments that need to be done, children’s play, bills to be paid, doctor’s appointments, the servicing of the family car, the laundry, the dishes, the garden. The musty, vampire environments that breed the most interesting and caring mushrooms cannot scare away the wonderful necessities of day where we all have to fall in love with the world again with the clearest of minds and a stable memory of the past. And everyday things, including everyday air, are what we humans inspire and expire. Same air we take for granted when we fall in love, lose a loved one, or bow in awe at the night sky – when we feel most alive! Everyday air is the first gasp we take in the world and the last we give off.

I think that the poppied bubbles of intoxication are only glimpses of your will as it takes on the world. To unconditionally cavort with biochemical heroes, trusting them to escort you to some transcendental café is to think you can draw the whole of human life and experience, by simply connecting all the molecular relatives from within you and out. Can you imagine yourself toward the end of your life thanking a hormone or a molecule for the one-time shot at being human and being alive? The world, in its everyday air, offers a larger stage for our will. Why settle for a glimpse? As the poet Derek Walcott penned his invitation: "Sit. Feast on your life." I think we should look at it straight in the eye, join the conversation of the gods and not be carried away.

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