I Accidentally Took Acid š Then This Happened
(3 minute read) ā Estimated Time of Arrival X Ramadan Edition pt III: stumbling upon a passion.
Welcome to Estimated Time of Arrival, your Wednesday newsletter where yours truly, Paula Romeu-Garcia, chats sh!t about life and drops nuggies of wisdom here & there.
In January, I genuinely confused what I thought was a vial of cheeky little mushrooms with one containing acid.
High as rockets, after leaving the theatre in the middle of a play, my bestie and I were engulfed by a neon-lit human stampede in Times Square.
As my close friends will tell you, I can be a hurricane in regular life, but Iām rock solid in times of madness. We āfollowed the signsā amongst incessant laughter and epiphanies and made it back to Brooklyn, safely.
I was listening to an article on AI published in The Atlantic this morning with a quote that perfectly captures the essence of that night.
Itās in that gap, the space between expectation and reality, that consciousness emerges to take control ā Peter Watts
In our mission to score food, music lured us into a secret, underground spot.
A magical place where people moved with eight different limbs like perfectly synchronised octopi.
Where the hell were we?
With my jaw floored, I concluded everyone there must have been a dancing teacher. Turns out they werenāt. A nonagenarian asked me for a dance and spun me around the room for a while.
I was very high but I felt this huge feeling of being home surrounded by those sweaty, scarlet-looking, smiley strangers.
The community I had long longed for came in all shapes, ages, colours and forms, and welcomed me with open arms.
One, two, three. Five, six, seven andā¦ Salsa.
I was hooked.
How it all ties in with Rama-done.
Iām all-day hunger games, tired, my skin has breakouts.Ā
Week two? Psychologically kill-me-now. Time mocks me, unmoving in daylight and acquiring light speed at night.
But Salsa has been my constant, my harbour, my lighthouse.
As a seasoned psychonaut, finding this passion, or stumbling upon it I should say, was kinda easy.
Step one, accidentally get high.
Step two, donāt panic and follow the signs.
Step three, open up to receive insights.
Having epiphanies (drug-facilitated or not) is not difficult. Just spend less time talking and engaging with your every thought and a little more time listening.
Doing somethinā about them epiphanies to manifest them into reality, however, is a whole other shebang.
You gotta commit. Make room. Make non-negotiables. In my case, I also bought a really cute pair of velvet dancing shoes.
(Wind machine hair effect on video, literally dead š )
Capitalism vs the laughing Buddha.
Despite the hardship, Iām grateful to Ramadan for having made room in my life that I suspected I needed. So I could commit wholeheartedly to something I didnāt know I was missing.
A piece connecting physical movement with socialising, learning (a new language) with sharing, and co-creating for the sheer love of creating without any freaking expectation to make money out of it.
Our capitalist culture often forces us to believe that we should monetize any skill or hobby we're good at; otherwise, itās āa waste of time.ā
āTheyā are wrong.
Follow a new curiosity, big or small until you find a passion.
Something you love doing. No. Strings. Attached.
Your time will feel richer, adding shades of rainbow to the otherwise mundane.
My mouth, from dawn till dusk, has been a desert cactus.
My mind, a wind-swept swirl of sand dune, has been only killing time until itās fed its dopamine. My belly has been housing a herd of bulls stubbornly marching in one direction: food.Ā
But my soul, my soul has been the laughing Buddha. Iāve been taking her dancing every night so weāre both replenished and amused.
I just thought Iād share it with you.
If it helps, itās yours.
Thank you for being here with me another week, dear one.
Can you guess which molecule is tattooed on my arm in the cover pic?
Look forward to hearing from you.
AgƔpe,
Paula x
If you had never done psychedelics before it could have been bad news.
It isn't politically correct to talk about positive experiences but I loved acid as a kid. That was almost 50 years ago.