Ecstasy
One of the really cool things about language is that it changes over time. Words and phrases morph meanings through the ages. For example, the term “kick the bucket” came from a time when people being hanged actually stood atop buckets which were actually kicked out from under them. Ergo the morphed meaning that “to kick the bucket” now means “to die.”
But that meaning took several years to morph.
Let’s look at words that have only taken a generation.
When my daughter talks to me about a “fling,” let me tell you it isn’t at all what a “fling” was when I was in high school. (I am NOT going to define this one for you…ask your own teenager.)
And while I might have “raved” about Sean Cassidy or Leif Garret, a “rave” now is a noun, not a verb. It is an event, typically entered into by cover charge, where glow sticks, lots of water and/or Gatorade or similar electrolyte enhancers are readily available. The location for a “rave” may or may not contain a “chill out” room where an air-conditioner blows full blast and where attendees often treat each other to back massages.
Oh, and one other thing … massive doses of Crank are available there.
What is Crank? you ask.
Well, 18 years ago it was methamphetamine, a substance people snorted to “crank” themselves up. Like a criminal, it had many aliases, going by the names of “Speed,” “Crystal Meth,” and “Ice” and it could be ingested many ways – from injection, to snorting, to smoking, to swallowing. On Crank, you could dance all night, play pool all day, drink all the beer you wanted, stay sober, and keep all that up and more for three or four days straight without sleeping. Oh yeah, it was also a great dieting aid for young people who had what we now would call “poor body image.”
Well Crank is back. Only it’s name has changed, and now it is, as are most 18-year-old products in a free market economy, “new and improved.” It’s mostly supplied in pill form now, and it has the added improvement of containing a hallucinogen. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine = MDMA.
Your 16 to 25 year old child probably calls it Ecstasy, (or Adam, or Eve or X ) and he or she will probably tell you that it puts the X in X-generation.
That is, of course, if it doesn’t X out your kid first.
Why is this the drug of choice among our kids, (no not the neighbors’ kids, nor the kids on the next block, nor the “underprivileged,” nor the “challenged”) but OUR kids? Our very bright, college-bound, TOPS students?
Because it does what college-bound kids are going to college for in the first place – It “expands the mind.” That is its chief selling-point to the up and coming leaders of our Republic. That, and it keeps you awake – a mental state quite beneficial to college success.
It enhances awareness, especially that achieved through the senses of touch and sight.
Remember that Rave we talked about a minute ago? Well, glow sticks are popular at raves because when they are twirled in front of an person in “ecstasy,” that person experiences hallucinations.
Have you recently uncovered a copy of The Art of Massage from between the mattress and box springs of your kid’s bed? If you think about the name of the drug, you can probably figure that interest in “Ecstasy” out on your own. If you need additional help, think of Star Trek’s Data when the Borg queen blew on the hair follicles of the android’s arm in the movie "First Contact." That should just about do it for mental imagery.
But while Ecstasy may tantalize the skin, it’s massaging the heart and mind muscles too. And it’s kicking adrenaline levels way past runner’s high levels. Those who do too much, who don’t “chill out,” who don’t consume enough water….well, they dehydrate.
Their hearts fry from the inside out.
Their brains get so hot that they boil within the skull.
(I’m sure there are medical terms for these things, but I was going for the expanded awareness jolt.)
By the way, if your child happens to be taking a Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor (MAOI) as an anti-depressant or is consuming alcohol while also experimenting with Ecstasy…well, that kid is certainly destined for expanded awareness. Perhaps he or she will publish a thesis on the ecstasy of his or her afterlife experience.
But, probably not.
If you would care to expand your child’s awareness after reading this editorial, you might want to tell Junior that even little white $10 to $40 pills (aka. “tabs” these days; “hits” in the 80s) are quite powerful enough to kick buckets.
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