It’s Not About the Weed

The intention of the Higher Thought game is not to get wasted. It’s not to use the questions on the cards as a warrant to get stoneder and stoneder and more and more spaced out.

The point is for the questions to propel leaps into the unknown, so we can connect with each other on fresh ground in fun and surprising ways. To open a dialogue in unfamiliar territory, or at least in territory that we haven’t already covered a zillion times.

I’ve read some cognitive research which states that most of us basically have the same sets of thoughts running through our minds day in and day out. That is, our thought tracks don’t really change all that much from day to day.  

I just read this sweet little essay about how to improve the quality of our thoughts. It states that according to the National Science Foundation, the “average person” (sic) has approximately 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day (I wonder how they figured THAT out. And I wonder if people who have more thoughts tend to be smarter or just more neurotic.) and 95% of those thoughts are repetitive! (Again, I’m not sure how they determined that, but if you follow your own thoughts closely, maybe you’ll see whether or not that’s true for you.)

Worse yet, roughly 80% of our thoughts tend to be negative in nature – fearful, resentful, worrisome, etc. OOF! That why the article I linked to above offers a way of reprogramming our thoughts, which could be life-changing (though I haven’t tried it yet so I cannot testify).

But the Higher Thought game is not a utility for improving our minds (though perhaps it does do that too!), but rather a means of taking a lovely little respite from our accustomed thoughts. 

Conversation on this level can be a portal that opens into a space of shared wonder at this mysterious human life. And in that space, sometimes – quite often, actually – our hearts spontaneously sync into communion.

So … THAT is the point of Higher Thought: The Cannabis Game. Yes, cannabis is in the name. We like cannabis – or I should say, I know I certainly do. (Guilty as charged, your honor. Oh wait, it’s legal now, isn’t it? Wow!) But even absent the sacred medicine of cannabis, we now know that the activating ingredient of the game is people.

It’s not about the weed. It’s the conversation. 

Amazing conversations with no agenda. 

Just that.