Transcribing Knowledge of The Smoke : PART II

Hunter: Oh man, cold pizza.
Jeff: Greatest. Food. Ever.
Hunter: I see my first slice.

Music ceases for a moment as the car is turned off and then on again. We're back from Sheetz and sitting in the parkinglot. It's an uneventful night, but we're both high, so we're both enjoying being in our heads.

Jeff: I got strawberry daiquiri flavored Sobe. That might be a little bit fruity.
Hunter: Haha, yeeeah, you might've just grown a tiny mangina.
Jeff: Eh, I tried all the other flavors and figured I'd try this one.
I laugh at him, he's a funny kid.

Jeff: Getting high is so weird.  Life is all about your verbal melee-ing skills.  If you can talk, you can dominate people.
Hunter:  Let's not start that shit.

I know where this is going.

Jeff: No, it's totally social engineering.

Yep.

Jeff: That's the essence of it right there.  But the point is, my getting high inhibits my ability to do that.  Like, if words are my power, it takes away my power.

At this point I figure Jeff is bashing pot, and I'm afraid he's delivering his farewell address.  This is a radical paradigm shift. 

Jeff, in the most pseudo-profound tone he can muster, says, "Getting high takes away my power.  I think that's supposed to be a profound statement or something."  He thinks wrong.

Hunter: Takes away your power?
Jeff: Does getting high take away your power, Hunter?
Hunter: Not in a bad way.
Jeff: See, I think it takes away your power temporarily, but as a whole person reinforces you.
Hunter:  I think so too, because that taking of power let's you sit back and let's your life--
Jeff: Degenerate?
Hunter: No, I mean, you view it instead of participate in it(not necessarily what I meant), and that's a different perspective. So when you come back, when you revert, and you remember that... you've discovered something about yourself or the universe.  So, no, I don't really think I'm losing something so much, when I'm getting high.  I just think I'm altering something so I can gain a different experience. 
Jeff:  Here's this.  Your yes-no binary system thing... it's true, it exists.  You have a plethora of options that are either in one of two states: active or passive.
Hunter: Yeah. Or "accepting" or "rejecting."  Any two opposite terms.  That's why I find the yin-yang fucking incredible.  Like, that is a symbol that says ONE thing about the universe that is so fundamental and true.  That controls the universe, that is the symbol of how things work.
Jeff: It also says to us that the Chinese were smart as shit.

This is where the conversation regarding duality stops being interesting and degrades into me saying, "Symbols are understandings."  Jeff gets his turn to make fun of me.  I deserve it, as my statement was true, but far too basic for its context. The next that happens is awesome.  We reaccess music, a CD I had burned specifically for the night, packed to the very edge with some of the greatest high songs ever.  The song "Charlie," by Red Hot Chili Peppers begins playing.

 

Jeff: You know why this CD is so good?  It's amazing blazing music.
Hunter: I know, that's what this CD is.  It's stuff that sounded really fuckin' cool when I was high.  Like, I make different compilations and listen for specific types of sounds--
Jeff: I'm talking about the Chili Peppers CD.  The double album.
Hunter:  Hahaha, I'm sitting here just sucking my own dick, complimenting myself and everything. 
Jeff: Hahaha, I don't care, I just love when we realize things like that. When I was hanging out with Mike and a couple of those other kids, we were talking about our experiences on acid.  I go, "Dude, the carpet at Chris Pelatir's  was just like... it was swirly."  And then one of the other kids goes, "I TOOK SHROOMS ONCE AND THE LIGHTS WERE BRIGHTER."  And the juxtaposition of that and how ridiculous it was made me realize how dramatic I was being.  I was like, "Oh."

We start talking about sports next.  Jeff says they're awesome, but regrets not being able to participate in them.  I tell him I haven't been high enough to want to watch sports.  I restate what I mean and say that I just haven't been the right mindset, and sometimes smoking allows that for anything.  This can be a good or a bad thing, depending.  But, then again, I don't believe in "good" or "bad."  These are human constructs.  There are things that are harmful and detrimental, but even these terms only scratch the surface of the true nature of things.  It all goes back to duality, the core of the universe.

The next part I'm excluding because I don't like it.  It deals with him and a girl.  I'm not only excluding it for his privacy, but also because it's kind of stupid.  His views on women may be true to some extent, but my experience tells me he is wrong, and that things are not necessarily one way with everyone. He thinks getting his car taken away will lead to him failing miserably and having no chance with said chick.  I say that's not true, just that he would have to try harder.  He talks about how to work the game, and I tell him he can just make the girl like him by being confident and comfortable with himself.  He sees it differently, like she is a means to his own happiness.  Disagreeing, I tell him it can be mutual.  It is possible.

 

One of my favorite songs ever starts playing--"Final Cut" by Coheed and Cambria.  It is a perfect background for the next part of our conversation.  The song sets a sober, if not depressing mood.  The conversation leads to the subject of death:
Hunter: I think there's real stuff in college(talking about relationships).  Like, at that point you're developing different sentiments.  You know what I mean?  A lot of people anyway.  I think that's called maturing, in a way.
Jeff:  I agree.  Yeah, I know.
Hunter:  And I like that maturity doesn't have to change you, but at the same time, I'm only 18 right now, maturity could ruin me.  I just have to mature to a certain point, you know? Where I'm happy. 
Jeff:  You have to be at the right place at the right time for you.  Those kids that are like 15 and getting into the kind of shit we're doing right now.
Hunter:  You know what it helps me realize?
Jeff:  What?
Hunter:  That helps me realize the phases in age, also realizing that I am getting older.  And I will die someday.
Jeff:  You're not invincible.
Hunter:  Grasping that concept is kind of sad.  That's when you give up man.
Jeff:  You don't really capitulate(I love hanging out with Jeff, he's one of the few people that can challenge my vocabulary. I will be honest, I did not know this word, but I did understand it. In case you don't know, it basically means to give up. ) until years later.  I mean, you'll contemplate capitulation to yourself.  But it's the moment when capitulation became a certainty.
THIS IS NO BEGINNING, YEAAHH YEAAHH, THIS IS THE FINAAAL CUUUT, OPEN UP!
Hunter: No, I hate that, it's like the brain was meant to accept death.
Jeff:  It was.  That's just how the human species works. 
Hunter(disgusted):  I hate that.
Jeff:  Like, what if every ant-drone spent its life trying to prolong itself instead of working for the hive? (This statement really actually worries me.  Jeff, if you read this, which I know you will, we need to talk, man.  That's the most terrifying statement you've ever made.  Like, c'mon, we are not ants, there is no hive.  To some extent, fuck humanity, I am living for myself.)
Hunter: That's why I respect people who've broken the triple digits.  It's like, damn, you have an incredible fucking will to hang out.

The conversation makes its way to:
Jeff: Our parents always make fun of us, like, "YOU THINK YOU'RE INVINCIBLE"
Hunter:  Haha.
Jeff:  I mean, why not?  We should at this point.
Hunter:  Yeah, because generally we are.  That's why we need to take more risks at this point in our life, because this is when we're choosing what we want in the next phase.  In the next universe of our understanding. 
Jeff:  You could become like a motivational speaker for high people.

I make my way to explaining that every action is the precursor to subsequent actions, and thus, determinism. 

Hunter:  Honestly, I wish I had never learned about determinism.
Jeff:  That's why I've never actually taken the time to learn about it. 
Hunter:  Like seriously, that is just an avenue you don't want to explore.  Like, you are a logical person, and if you start knowing certain things... I'm just saying, some ideas can break a person. 

And then.

Jeff:  This is gonna sound really gay, but I've been reading a great book called Healing the Shame That Binds You.  It's all about family systems and stuff.  And how people end up, like,  fucked up.
Hunter:  Like interactions between people?
Jeff: Yeah, like how interactions between people fuck us up.
Hunter:  Isn't it weird how we kind of mold eachother?
Jeff:  Yeah. It's kind of crazy. 
Hunter:  It's kind of sad, because we're molding eachother and we don't have any choice in it. 

The music-box like ending to the song is playing. It's melancholy, which I think is why I was.  Music can totally set a mood while high.  I usually avoid depressing shit when I'm high.  But then the blue-grass-esque ending kicks in and I'm set.  I go into Coheed and Cambria band lore.  He has no clue what I'm talking about and it's all one-way conversation:
Hunter:  Damn, I hate trying to explain fucking esoteric shit-- bullshit that no one should know. 

The car starts playing "Salieri Strikes Back," by Warmen.  Everyone is happy.

 

Jeff rants about something for awhile, but I stop listening and start doing air-keyboard to the song, because the song kicks ass and I can't resist.  He laughs at me, and I tell him I'm good at anything involving moving my fingers really fast.  It's true. 
Jeff:  No, I just realized what just happened.  The orchestra played me out.
I laugh for like four minutes.
Jeff:  You know when people go to award shows and like, talk to long?
I apologize perfusely, using the "I'm high" defense. 
Jeff:  No, it needed to happen.  I was blathering.
Hunter:  Some things just override your attention.

We talk about having our own show, online.  I still, even sober, think this would be an incredible act.  We've talked about it forever, and have had some legitamately funny things happen throughout our hang out sessions.  I can see it working.  People are famous for much, much less.

Hunter:  Think about all the dumbass rich kid stoners that are forming our culture right now.
Jeff:  You realize we kind of fall into that category right? (even dumbass? aww)
Hunter:  I realize that, but that's why we can profit off of it. 

I explain that kids are the key to making money.  If you can culturally prepare them through business to be customers in the future, you are golden.  Seriously, it's kind of fucked up, but that kind of grand-scale social engineering is plausible and profitable. 

"Towards Dead End," by Children of Bodom begins playing. Jeff got me into them, and knows more about them than anything.

Jeff:  I just realized "Silent Night, Bodom Night" is playing, and it is awesome.

The only time I have ever seen this man slip on his Bodom knowledge; however, I apply my same "I'm high" defense to this situation.  Works everytime.  We talk about band lore and Jeff thinks he's coined the phrase.  He contends that "band lore" is a compound term and therefore original.  I tell him compound terms are the first to go.

We start heading out and pass the girls we saw earlier. They're crowded around a much bigger dude who stands in a grey college hoodie with a baseball hat on his head turned 180 degrees.
Jeff:  What the fuck?
Hunter:  Drunk people...? Oh, it's those girls---OH, they were coming here to meet a college dude.  That's kind of fucked up. 
Jeff:  You know that shit happens all the time.

We talk about it, and I tell him I'm totally going to write a story about it, though I have yet to do so as of writing this. Jeff goes, "Shit, now I can't write about it. But you mentioned it was worth writing, I may have just glossed over it." He mentions that that's how it worked back in the Middle Ages and shit like that.  I just think it's sad, though, for both parties.  A) The girls are being taken advantage of when they really think they aren't.  B) Old guy has no game and therefore prowls for young ass.  In my opinion, the older(up to 28-32) the better.  Immaturity, mentally, is so obscene, I don't care how attractive you are.  That's a killer.

We head home and go our seperate ways.