Private Obsessions; White Whales; The Quest!
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I have a long-term fantasy of digging under one of the stones at Stonehenge and depositing a iPhone or similar, just to fuck with archaeologists of the far future.
I also intend my last words to be "The... bullion... is... hidden... in... the..."
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
@WashYourHands what are the main cutting agents for skag? Just out of morbid curiosity
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
Caffeine, aspirin, paracetamol, laxido, brick dust, Benadryl, fentanyl, carfentanyl, every benzo on Earth and quinine
If it looks the part it goes in, cocaine is increasingly levamisole because of the fish scale double take
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
If it looks the part it goes in, cocaine is increasingly levamisole because of the fish scale double take
Levamisole: A High Performance Cutting Agent
Levamisole is an imidazothiazole chemical most frequently used as an antihelminthic agent in cattle. Over the last decade, levamisole has been increasingly encountered as an additive in both powder and crack cocaine. A white powder with a “fish ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
"The Great Work" as described by Crowley is the Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Crowley used as his model The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage which is a process where you purify yourself and prayer in increasing increments - 2, 4 then 6 hours a day for 6 months (or 18 according months according to other versions of the text). I do know (or know of) a few people who've done this which is pretty amazing in the modern world.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
What kinds of changes would this bring to a person?
It’s all about making an effort, you can’t just vaguely ‘want it’. I’ve had loads of white whales over the years, mostly obscure/forgotten archival material, and would spend a lot of time hunting it all down – one newspaper mugshot took me the best part of a year to unearth, and I’ve contacted various local councils, primatologists, New Orleans krewes, TV and print journalists, even the North Korea Friendship Association, to track stuff down or get info. You’d be surprised how many people get back to you. But then again, B2B publishing's been my 'real life' job for 23 years now, so I'm used to firing off queries.
My success rate has been pretty good – it’s as if making the effort fires up some psychic multi-beam echosounder that helps track whatever you’re after, and once you’ve hit one hot lead the others follow fast. It’s good fun, you can turn these investigative jaunts into holidays. Don't be surprised if you pick up valuable info, then randomly bump into someone who mentions something connected to it.
I remember seeing a copy of Right To Kill by Whitehouse in Tokyo, on sale for stupid money (probably the price of a pint of milk in a few months...). Every noise nutter's dream. I had a drink in a bar over the road from the record shop, wondering whether to bite the bullet and buy it, and thought: this is THE album you’ve wanted for 18 years. You can just live on toast and LIDL beans for a few months, or get some freelance work on the side, or flog stuff on eBay…it’s in your grasp! And then I just thought: nah. It wasn’t the money: sometimes you see the white whale in the flesh and realise the thought of it's so much better.
My success rate has been pretty good – it’s as if making the effort fires up some psychic multi-beam echosounder that helps track whatever you’re after, and once you’ve hit one hot lead the others follow fast. It’s good fun, you can turn these investigative jaunts into holidays. Don't be surprised if you pick up valuable info, then randomly bump into someone who mentions something connected to it.
I remember seeing a copy of Right To Kill by Whitehouse in Tokyo, on sale for stupid money (probably the price of a pint of milk in a few months...). Every noise nutter's dream. I had a drink in a bar over the road from the record shop, wondering whether to bite the bullet and buy it, and thought: this is THE album you’ve wanted for 18 years. You can just live on toast and LIDL beans for a few months, or get some freelance work on the side, or flog stuff on eBay…it’s in your grasp! And then I just thought: nah. It wasn’t the money: sometimes you see the white whale in the flesh and realise the thought of it's so much better.
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Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
I'd imagine a great stillness of mind, a bulwark against the vicissitudes of daily life. You'd just observe phenomena that would normally irritate you, and hardly even be affected.
I can't say across the board. Its like therapy. If you and I were to do a year of therapy, even with the same therapist we'd probably have very different outcomes. In the video above, the speaker (Lionell Snell) is similarly annoyingly vague but he gives his reasons.
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
IdleRich
IdleRich
I think so, to me there are two built-in problems which are unavoidable, fundamental parts of it. You can't set it up so you have the obsession but somehow without these downsides. They are not side-effects, they are the effect. And for me these downsides, particularly the second, are more than enough to outweigh any positives...
1. I get that this is not really an argument as such, I'm just restating the question and saying NO, but to me an obsession - be it with Dick or anything else - that is strong and singular enough to count here is not healthy. The total value of all the other things and people you throw aside in the pursuit will ultimately be much more than you can ever hope to gain, even if you make incidental gains along the way... even if you succeed completely. In fact if you do succeed...
2. Then what? What after you've killed your white whale. If you make your life about one thing and then achieve it you must feel so empty. Of course Ahab goes to the bottom with his white whale and we're supposed to view it as a punishment for his unnatural obsession... but what if he didn't? That would be much worse for me. Of course the book has to end, but in reality someone's life doesn't end when their story does. Supposedly Alexander the Great broke down in tears when there was nothing else for him to conquer - blame his geography teachers for that I guess, but the point stands.
IdleRich
IdleRich
You obviously wouldn't give anything or you would have bought a fucking dog by now.