Smoking weed every day makes me less presentable and less productive. I love it
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Eventually though I took a break. And when I did I noticed how many moments of my own life I was oblivious to, I decided to extend my break. Suddenly things I’d given up on seemed much more possible. Things that seemed impossible seemed much more worth the effort anyway. Then I tried another joint because I missed smoking with my partner — I didn’t especially enjoy it, but I found a reason for another, and another, and soon enough I was high again all day and it took months for me to notice what had happened: I was no longer doing all these things that I was proud of, and was not even feeling more satisfied with my life. I was just highly motivated to seek out that specific kind of satisfaction, which came to the exclusion of so many others.
I’m glad weed was an option, but it is addictive, and that addiction leads to rationalization designed to dismiss the steep opportunity cost of being lethargic through an induced contentment.
> the steep opportunity cost of being lethargic through an induced contentment.
Weirdly, I think this is also a risk of actual contentment. I'm not a weed user, and I no longer consume alcohol (more or less). Nevertheless, through a number of strokes of good luck, I lead a very contented life, and I think this also causes a similar kind of lethargy-induced opportunity cost. Discontentment is a powerful motivator.
Thanks for writing this.
For me, I eventually "grew up" and just found myself organically phasing it out of my life. Part of that was it was annoying to constantly be "picking up" in a state where it was illegal. And I didn't have access to giga-potent strains and non-flower administration routes. I don't think we should encourage people to be frying themselves 24/7 on dabs, extracts, 95% pure THC vape pens, etc. I'm not sure I would fully endorse 100% legality/open access like many states have. I still occasionally have a puff of a 10:1 CBD:THC vape pen and it hits the spot. But that is like 2% of what my local dispensary offers. Most of it is specifically sold as frying your brain.
Can you explain why? I feel like weed makes me kinder to people (as well as letting go of small petty things, as the article suggested), which unironically seems like a major relationship booster, which is helpful in both family/career building.
Drinking went from something super casual to - think about it, check in with the wife to confirm that she can/doesn't mind doing any potential driving, then have a drink or two.
It's like scheduling a good time. Totally kill the vibe.
Not in my experience. Drugs of any kind usually cause your partner to feel too distant from the "real you". Drug use may also indicate a lack of confidence and inability to handle mundane situations.
Being an unreliable partner has to be one of the top relationship killers regardless of drug use.
> kinder to people as well as letting go of small petty things
I may be misunderstanding what you're saying here, but relationships should be way deeper than just being kind to each other. Disagreements are only as bad as the way they're handled. They need to be worked out early or the disappointment and irritation will only get worse. Burying your head in the sand doesn't sound like a good strategy.
> I may be misunderstanding what you're saying here, but relationships should be way deeper than just being kind to each other.
Yes, but being kind is the cornerstone of a good relationship. In my observed experience, most relationships don't even have that, so it's a good ideal to strive towards (as a first step)
> Disagreements are only as bad as the way they're handled.
No. If there are fundamental disagreements on relationship goals, then your relationship is a ticking time bomb. You can't "handle" your way out of that.
It is possible to be this way without weed too. It takes practice but is very doable.
This is actually a problem for a friend of mine who wants to try small amounts to help with her appetite and other things. Her doctors are all on board.
Thankfully I knew of a decent place to take her, but her local shops were all about melting into a couch.
> imagine all the complex systems of the world—physical, economic, philosophical, technological—that are required for to support that life
As opposed to what?
The author mentions functioning well and having a job; this to me sounds like having a relationship with the world.
> Maybe it makes me less motivated, but I don’t really want to be more motivated. I consider wanting to be more productive very lame, like you’ve been cucked by the patriarchy and capitalism. I have goals like everyone else, but I feel like achieving them quicker or more efficiently is less important than my overall enjoyment of life.
But I can also see how this was meant as a serious piece.
The best that this article can offer as a HN submission is a discussion on “so is weed good or bad” …
My answer to this is "yes". Like most things, it's both.
Also: "A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole." -- Frank Zappa
If I know that when I drink brandy I start fights, and I nonetheless decide to drink brandy - that's on me, not the brandy.
No, it's not being honest about it. Having read the article, it's apparent to me that the author has a lot of problems, and weed isn't the cause of them. The person is an addict, period. And, basically, the entire article reads as a celebration of their addiction and their "I don't care" attitude. The author ought to consider attending AA or NA meetings.
I say this as an alcoholic (nearly 4 years sober) and a daily marijuana (edibles) user. Driving while high, like drunk driving, is very selfish behavior. It's not about your own safety (I couldn't care less if this person killed themselves while driving high), but rather the safety of innocent bystanders you're more likely to harm. Especially given the admission that they drove into a parked car while sober!
I, like the author, often use marijuana daily. However, I'm not stoned all day, and it doesn't make me unmotivated. I use weed as one of many tools for dealing with chronic pain (I have arthritis in every joint in my spine and every disk is degenerative), but I'm also working with my doctors on treatments, including physical therapy (which is painful, but also very effective) and, pain blocks, injections, braces and other treatments. Because weed is effective for me dealing with pain, it's actually a motivator and productivity booster for me. But, one needs to be responsible about it. I often work from home, so I don't have to worry about driving. On days I do have to go into the office (I take the train for most of it, but do have to drive several miles to get to the station), I refrain from using until I am home for the day.
I am constantly impressed by the ability of 4chan insults to find their way into the common lexicon. The ironic part is that smoking weed every day would be "normie" behavior on 4chan.
It’s slowly become more popular over time, but you can find much older references.
Were you also the kid that called people "gay" as an insult and said "no I meant 'happy'?"
Here you go: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/normie/
Here I'll help:
> Around the time Urban Dictionary logged the term in 2004, it began circulating through different social groups on the internet. In the late 2000s, it was adopted by cosplayers and anime enthusiasts and used to describe people who liked what they considered basic anime or weren’t as passionate about anime. In 2012 normie gained popularity on the 4chan forums. Through the mid 2010s it was a staple on meme subreddits such as r/memeeconomy, usually accompanied by a Pepe meme. As normie proliferated 4chan, the online subculture of men called incels (involuntary celibate) began using it in conjunction with the term blue-pilled normalfag, which derides a man who spends time on male message boards but still gets dates or has a girlfriend or wife. Blue-pilled normalfag is closely associated with normie, though the latter slang has broader and less offensive uses.
Somehow I doubt it was used this way "commonly" since the 50's, but maybe I'm just crazy.
Based off of Ngram usage, it'd probably be fair to say that they popularized it at the very least. Nothing new under the sun and all that.
Now not everyone is going to use something just because it was on TV, but it definitely played a role.
- Earliest use: shortening of "Norman".
- Lots of use by the disabled to refer to people who aren't disabled.
- A little use that happens to be like the article, from substance abuse communities referring to people with normal relationship with substances.
- Some use in monster/vampire fiction.
Then it started to be used a little bit in the present prevailing sense on the internet in the late 90's. Usage exploded from 2000-2015, rising >10x, and almost all of the current use is in the current form of referring to people derisively for having normal tastes, hobbies, and viewpoints.
With any luck, y'all are going to be 60 someday, or 80, and pot making boredom less boring is going to become your every waking thought, and staying awake all night is going to become a curse and no longer a superpower.
And cannabis is going to be there for you as an alternative to benzos and opiates, and it will be a good thing. Count on it.
How should such a person set up their smoke detectors?
I'm thinking: False alarms triggered by the marijuana smoke might disrupt their calm, and removing batteries and being in a perpetual cloudy-headed state could lead to batteries not getting back in. And if they're smoking from bed, they'll probably need more protection than most people, for detecting smoldering bed sheets.
EDIT: I have apologised for the tone of this post below, and come to a very amicable conclusion with OP.
> False alarms triggered by the marijuana smoke might disrupt their calm
>removing batteries and being in a perpetual cloudy-headed state could lead to batteries not getting back in.
> if they're smoking from bed, they'll probably need more protection than most people, for detecting smoldering bed sheets
These are all very condescending points. They assume that a Cannabis smoker requires a certain level of calm and cant handle anything more, that they are unable to do something as simple as changing batteries, and that they are likely to burn themselves alive in bed. I am assuming you are insinuating that cannabis makes people 'stupid', and if I am wrong this is what your point comes across as.
Perhaps next time you might not immediately make such negative statements against a large group of people, even in a sarcastic or jokey way. This is also assuming your last post was serious and you are genuinely interested in how you are putting people down unnecessarily.
The article talked about willingly being calm, and caring less, and I honestly don't know whether that would extend to being more prone to the (not-uncommon) practice of removing batteries from an alarm, and then neglecting to put them back in. I've also frequently heard of falling asleep while smoking as being a cause of house fires.
FWIW, some of my work has involved safety. And some of my other work has involved human factors engineering, and more generally looking at how people behave in reality, and designing from there. No disrespect intended to people. If you read my comment in that light, does it seem less offensive than before?
I'll be more sensitive. Including being aware that I'm not familiar with marijuana, and bound to make incorrect guesses/assumptions, which I now realize could be frustrating to people. And also now being aware that some people might be accustomed to snarky comments around the topic of marijuana, and be on guard against that.
Wow, what a careful and considered response. Thankyou so much! I retract any snark or sarcasm from myself, apologise for my bluntness, and bow down to your very humble self. If only all interactions online could end this way. Thanks for making my day.
For the record many people have died because they fell asleep with a lit cigarette (probably because they’re likely drunk or just very tired) in their hand which then causes a fire. Stupid ass comment!
No he didnt, he made fun of people who smoke cannabis for being stupid and more likely to kill themselves in an idiotic way. I would have happily engaged in an intelligent comment talking about the dangers of smoking in bed, or even statistics about how smokers are moere likely to die aslepp in fires, but his comment was definitely not these things.
>All he did is speculate and he’s not that far off from reality!
This comment just shows you have the same condesceding viewpoint, which explains why you are agreeing with him. He is in fact very very far from reality, and if you had an open mind and explored this with other people with different viewpoints from yourself you would realise that pretty quickly.
Have a great day!
It takes a lot, and I assume that's intentional. Smoldering sheets and drywall are going to produce a lot more smoke than a joint.
Oh, I said, like cancer, heart disease or hypertension?
No, she was in her 20's. None of that mattered. However a friend of her's set fire to the bed she was sleeping in. That made a very big impression on my Mom. She apparently liked a cigarette before bed and had no faith in her ability to just stop smoking then - so she quite entirely.
For some reason it makes me laugh.
In my experience, habitual users can seem perfectly fine but maintaining meaningful relationships has been difficult. Forgetfulness, unfocused thinking, constant talking about the drug or using the drug, etc. all dominate the relationship in those friendships of mine. We all have our baggage and difficulties in a relationship, but with habitual cannabis users it seems to be a prevailing pattern.
When I find myself being too disconnected from the "now" and stressing out over what is ultimately petty nonsense, I'll have a bit.
Having it available, consequence free, in a legal state, has drastically improved my quality of life; even if I only use it once every month or so.
I feel the same about cannabis, and in my state of Texas, delta 8 THC. A low to moderate dose allows me to stop overthinking and just chill. It helps me enjoy movies instead of getting anxious or bored or distracted as I often now do.
It's a great alternative to alcohol for those who want to use a chemical to "take the edge off".
And of course, the dominant party in Texas has pledged to bring up a bill to heavily restrict or ban delta 8 in the state "for the children".
One brother seemed to need weed to function daily. He struggled at school, never got a real job, and smoked weed every waking hour. He was hitting the bong first thing in the morning. I think he eventually got bored with weed and started using other drugs including prescription pain killers. He became paranoid and psychotic and eventually started pointing guns at police officers. He is now dead sadly, and I wonder every day if I could have intervened in a meaningful way to prevent this.
The other brother is smart. Engineer smart. He designs his own motorcycle racing mods, built an e-commerce site for a Harley Davidson dealership which eventually took over as the principal money earner for the business (until Harley cracked down on 3rd party sellers). When he smoked weed it seemed to quiet his mind and even inspire him - he could work for an inhuman number hours once properly loaded with THC. His boss new he was a regular user and tipped him whenever a random drug test was in the works. Then one day, my brother deliberately failed the test. At that point he seemed to have a mental breakdown and his life has been in a downward spiral ever since. He lives in a school bus with all the seats removed (no other mods). He struggles with poverty.
My general attitude is that THC should be legal, but it is not as harmless as advertised. Occasional recreational use seems fine, but some people who use it to self-medicate may eventually have a reckoning. I still say THC is less harmful than alcohol.
I smoke a cigar, probably a few (<10 a year on average) and I mainly have those when I'm celebrating a major event like passing finals or finishing personal projects. Cigars help me a bit but I can't stand the after smell, so I personally wash everything immediately and shower and brush my teeth.
I might try weed if it ever became unregulated to the level that tobacco or liquor is, when its not a felony or even mistonomener(can't figure out how to spell this word) even if I did find pleasure in it, I wouldn't use it more than 2 times. I know some people swear it helps them function better, but iv also seen some people who lose motivation and become less of themselves....they seem to lose focus of goals in life, they seem to have memory issues etc.
I'm doubtful weed is as bad as it is classified....but I also don't think its some cure all without these negative side effects. The modern movement seems to talk about how harmless it is, but I feel like they don't recognise that it can be harmful just like drinking.
I want to believe this article was meant for the Babylon Bee, but got emailed to the wrong editor. Sadly, we live in clown world.
Wonder if the species survives capitalism long enough to get custom drugs to target positive brain impact
This is a common sentiment in Los Angeles and abroad, but I can relate to everything this person is saying as a resident of Los Angeles. There is not a peer group here to make you ambitious, and it’s slowed down my productivity in comparison to when I was in NYC or SF.
But you can fix this, it’s all about speaking in LA lingo.
For example, I tell people “I’m motivated by abundance”, which is spiritual speak for “making money via unbridled capitalism”. And “the universe sent me an idea” instead of my own late stage capitalist actions, as this crowd doesn’t hold themselves accountable for their actions, but you can mold that to your own ends
You’d think it was insufferable, until you saw the women that this engagement farms
Can you explain what you’re trying to say with this? I didn’t quite get it haha!