My First Mystical Experience, Don't Try To Be Odysseus, and Thoreau On Technology
Baxter's Blend: A New Newsletter
Hey friends,
Greetings from Austin!
I waited until today to post something because I’m switching it up a bit. Instead of dumping an essay in your inbox every week, I’ll be sharing a newsletter.
The other day, I realized that I have loads of great research and interesting ideas just sitting there in my Evernote. So I thought, why not just share those with you?
I'm already very strict with my inputs. I haven’t listened to a podcast in a few months. I only consume things that call out to me. So every week, you’ll get a taste of the juiciest things that I’m thinking about. Stuff you probably won’t see anywhere else on the Internet.
For now, I’m calling it Baxter’s Blend. You can expect to see things like:
Highlights from my newest essay
The coolest things I learned each week
Personal stories, observations, and jokes
If you already subscribe to my stuff, there’s nothing new you have to do. So now let’s get to the ideas!
New Essay: My First Mystical Experience
You can read the full essay here.
In April, I took my first large dose of psychedelic mushrooms. Besides a few painful puffs of weed, I’ve never done drugs before. So you bet I was nervous.
But in the months leading up to it, I did some real research. I changed my mind about mushrooms and realized that there might be some true power to psilocybin—if it’s used carefully and consciously.
I was right. It was one of the most meaningful, transformative experiences I’ve ever had.
If you’ve heard people like Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan talk about mushrooms but you’re still hesitant to try them, then this essay is for you.
I talk about the story of why I wanted to do it, how I prepared mentally and physically, how I sat in silence to integrate, and all the insights that I got. In those six hours, I learned some of the most profound lessons of my life.
Lessons like:
The intuition—the heart and the gut—is my internal moral code. People pleasing and worrying about others come from not honoring myself. As Steve Jobs said, “Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than the intellect in my opinion.”
It makes so much sense why the world is so anxious. There’s just too many inputs out there. Books, podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram. Music always playing. TV’s always on. People always talking. Blah, blah, blah. It’s mostly all noise that drains out my own basic truth.
Emotions are not good or bad—they just are. They are what really connect us to the human race. It’s why literature exists and stands the test of time. To deny our emotions is to deny our connection to everyone else.
In the creative act, there are no rules! If it feels forced, then there’s probably someone I’m trying to imitate who isn’t me that I must let go of.
Don’t believe everything you think.
Happiness can’t be acquired.
You can read the full essay here:
Don’t Try To Be Odysseus
Right now, I’m reading the Odyssey. It’s a fat ancient Greek poem about a guy named Odysseus trying to sail home after the Trojan War.
In Book 12, Odysseus gets a message from Circe, a sea-goddess. “When you get to the island of the Sirens,” she says, “row fast as fuck! Stuff your shipmates’ ears with beeswax and have them tie you down to the mast.”
The reason for this is because the Sirens have a sexy song that spellbinds any man alive. If a sailor hears them sing, he gets sucked in and then later dies from his temptation.
When I first read this, I thought about the parallels to the Internet. I thought that we should be like Odysseus, binding ourselves to the mast with restraints. I thought that we should use tools that track screen time or install app blockers like Opal.
But then I read what Nassim Taleb wrote in Fooled by Randomness:
“The first lesson I took from the story is to not even attempt to be Odysseus. He is a mythological character and I am not. He can be tied to the mast; I can merely reach the rank of a sailor who needs to have his ears filled with wax.”
I agree. Odysseus is closer to a god than a man. In fact, he’s so strong that all the men who want to steal his wife can’t even string his old bow.
So if we should be more like the sailors, this means that we shouldn’t even listen to the song. Translated as a metaphor for modern media, this means fully pulling the plug. Deleting social media. Getting rid of the TV. Not even tempting the temptation itself.
I talked to my friend Dante about this. Here’s the conclusion we came to:
Thoreau on Technology
On this same theme of technology, I keep pondering a quote from Henry David Thoreau. In his 1854 book, Walden, he wrote:
“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end . . . We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”
Photo of the Week
After going out to dinner with a few friends, we popped into an art store in Austin. Ever since that night, I’ve never thought about coffee the same way again:
See you next week,
Baxter Blackwood
P.S. Do you know an intellectual who would resonate with this newsletter? Send it their way:
Very interesting! I liked the Thoreau quote and was curious about the mushrooms.
Excited to check out more of your writing
This is a banger.