The-Greenman.net

We were made to be intoxicated. Altered states of consciousness are vital to the effective creative functioning of an intelligent being. I can't prove it yet, but one day it will be science, rather than just hangover justification. But I am serious, I really believe that the successful functioning of human society requires that we get ourselves completely wasted (every now and then).

Before I can explain my belief in "getting out of it", I may need to explain a little about how I see our intelligence functioning. I'll talk about this from the approach of a programmer cause it might sound more credible that way. So here comes the "Agile Development view of day to day life".

Our consciousness is one, decently complex, integrated system. Every time we make a decision, we apply our ruleset, check the results and make a few rapid updates to the code. We make these adjustments in a very ad-hoc way, based on the information at hand we make assumptions, build them into our system and then move on. No hanging around, no deliberation, just do it. We may be deliberating or hanging around up on top in our consciousness, but at an operational level, that does not happen, well, not till later.

Most people are surprised by my plan for dealing with hangovers. I think it's pretty simple - you just have to ride them. If you are stuck with a hangover, then there is not much you can do - cause it's too late.

So, the best way to treat a hangover is to put on a pair of cowboy boots and pretend to be a rock star! That's all there is too it, I guarantee you'll feel much better.

We were once wild. Our human race was full of the desperate energy of the undomesticated. Wild and free. This life was not pretty, we died young, we suffered much, but we gave up so much when we accepted to take on the rules of civilization.

Once a year I take part in an act of wildness. I dress myself up in a costume and do my best to forget the strictures that fence me in each day. (I try my best to escape more often than once a year, but responsibilities do their best to hold onto me.) Once a year I take myself out of myself and take part in what is one of the holiest days in my religious calendar - SantaCon (I tried to grab a few more pics of supersanta and put them in my flickr faves)

The drinking started 8am on Friday and continued almost non-stop till Monday afternoon (Reaching some kind of crescendo at about 3am Monday in a cloud of cigar smoke and a blur of tequila). In between we flew to Leipzig in East Germany, gave three presentations, performed a few experimental "actions" for the Leipzig CCTV operators and lost one of our agents in a car accident. It was the usual Space Hijacker field trip.

Our gang had been invited to Leipzig by Leipziger Kamera to help them "celebrate" 10 years of CCTV in Leipzig. It was the first time anyone has ever made posters announcing that the Hijackers were coming to town, and we did our best to live up to our reputation.

Since the general theme of the trip was surveillance, and our hosts did not actually know us, we thought we would play a little game or spies. Undecided (the agent we lost in the car accident) and I arranged separate transport from the airport and our own special accommodation. Dressed in black, we left the "Hijackers" to get picked up and taken to their base - while we watched and took photos from a distance. When we arrived at the talks that night, well, people got a little nervous.