The Trips

The trip. The thing that gets every space cadet started on the path of self discovery. The realization of the 3rd eye opening revealing to us that we are, in fact, spirit souls, trapped in fleshy prisons, sent here to work through our karma and entanglements of the past. The path which makes one keen one enlightenment, and then after a few years out of university, one promptly realizes that enlightenment doesn’t pay the bills. But the trip remains and send us down other paths; this is a story about some other trips.

My love affair with maryjane all started when I was 17. On a trip with some acting students, deep in the wilderness of Montague, I discovered her. She came in form of a cheap girl, almost like the first girl that allowed you to touch her breasts. It was quick, easy, your heart was pounding, and then after that taste…you felt calm, you felt assured and confident, that you knew something that so many others you grew up with had no idea or comprehension of. That night you go to sleep drifting in sweet dreams, more relaxed (for different reasons) than you have been in a long time, and also curious to see if that feeling can go even deeper.

Here are some choice trips that I remember during my past few years on this teardrop shaped island. The first night I arrived, I was taken to a motel party, filled with people of all origins; Russians, Americans, Albanians, Canadians, South Africans and Taiwanese; exactly what the UN always envisioned the world to be. We sat in the hot tub and the Albanian rolled me a splifter, telling me of her tales and her crystals and vision boards, and me, a young colt by the age of 24, fully enraptured by her tails and her spliff rolled with care and attention that only a fellow hippy could give.

Fast forward year later, living in my own apartment, it was always a challenge to find some of the forbidden fruit, so sometimes one needed luck, which fortunately was on my side this time, when I want to a park and saw a sight very strange for Taiwan. I saw a drum circle and a djembe, and didgeridoo… something perhaps commonplace back home but here, it’s like seeing The Rock in a bikini contest. The said people in this case were a dude who had spent 6 months travelling India (as one does before one gets into drum circles) and a cyber-goth Asian with long fake, cyber dreads, platform books, a matrix trench coat and a tattoo of Edward Norton on his arm, which still to this day was the weirdest tattoo I’ve ever seen on a human. He said it reminded him of fight club, which inspires you, and probably had some communist quote like, ” the things you own end up owning you.” Let’s call him L. L was in my life for just about a month, but the produce was good, to be honest I’ve forgotten, but the memory will always remain. The strongest memory I have of L was him showing us where to get “Lu Wei” (street stand vegetables cooked in a soup broth that you can get at all times of the night) and his friend he invited over who was an amateur hip hop dancer, and who I remember, not being the kind of person that I would think a cyber goth would want to hang out with.

Trip 2 takes place on scooters, the miles driven in them under the freshness of clarity. Going back from waterfall adventures, where one and another can go deeper into understanding each other and the unique language spoken by nature of another area. Underneath the UV hard sun of the East, one finds boulders and hidden pools of mystery, full of fish and a surprise person hidden behind the corner (seeing as the tiny island inhabits 24million people…so more often than not, any time, any place, one can expect to bump into some soul calling this space his place.) Listening to the latest playlists made, the noble savage ventures forth. His beard kissed by the afternoon heat, filled with a mixture of PM2.5 and mountain water, the cities hustled sins are washed away, and the trip reveals how easy it all can be, but actually you’d forgotten all about it in your restless pursuit of riches, glory and the satisfaction of one day telling all the doubters of high school, that you have successfully ascended higher than them, but yet, you are still humble through it all. Ego death, clarity…illusion. Take your pick, seeing as you’re done with bullshitting yourself, at least for this moment. So yeah…drink it in. Breathe it. But don’t let any opinion consume you right?

A final trip chosen to end the metaphors and underlying themes expressed within would perhaps be the tale of Sanyi. Sanyi is in Miaoli, the middle part of Taiwan. Filled with Hakka people, mountains, and forests; whenever one finds a foreigner there, there is usually an interesting tale attached. This tale was that one time, perhaps a year into my venture, seeing as I still had a car, was when I and a young African American took my car for a trip to meet a buddy of his, who happened to have a house at the top of a treacherous mountain path. With neither of us having much experience driving, we shared the burden between us and ventured up.

The man, lets call him N, upon entering had a projector set up, and sounds emanating from his PC/DJ setup that he proceeded to Sax over to welcome us in. He offered his herb and we obliged. There with his soon be fiance, and his religious mother who had worked as a nurse in a Mental hospital, who proceeded that night, after our amazing hike, feeling the wind blowing on us; to wash our feet “as Jesus had done.” Thinking back now, there was another chap, a friend of my friend, who recalled his experiences on Ayahuasca, along with a 60 year old South African woman, who had worked there for years, saving money, having a nice carefree life, and donating a lot of money towards helping stray animals.

Indeed the trip takes us to different areas, and back, and we have to either choose to flow with is, wherever unpleasant truths it may materialize, or like me fight some days against my own mental constructs and being, to force myself to change my cards and fight my way to the top, facing amongst other, myself. With each day, the choices are made and reflected upon; but at least we can take a drag and remind ourselves, that after all, it is all but a dream. And as the bard himself said…”We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

Stay lifted and stay high

Jin Li Hai