Death Is The Ultimate High

Well, I've told you pretty much everything else, so I might as well tell you this.

After all, I often think that it's pretty much one of the most important facts about me.
You either feel this way, or you don't.

And it's like Adam and Eve eating the apple, you can't uneat it. Once you've had this vision, got stuck on this thought, you can't be shifted.
It's your world now, and you will carry it forever.

Death is the ultimate high.
A favoured saying in real life of the author of this blog.
A belief that the most euphoric ecstasy to be felt is right on the very edge, the border between life and death.

That it is only when you know that you are being flung irrevocably towards your final moments that you will truly cling onto and savour them, as the sweat pours off your brow, your mind is full of the most powerful illuminations you've ever seen, and your blood vessels pump their way to oblivion.

I've never actually been suicidal in my life, not really. On two occasions, the very worst in my life, the idea crossed my mind for a brief period, more in a kind of speculative exhaustion, but a couple of beers soon dispelled such notions.

However, it is also true that I don't really try extra hard to stay alive either. One could say I am largely indifferent to the moment of my calling. The idea of dieing doesn't bother me over much.
Partly I suppose, there is my general hankering to die in glory rather than old age, but also, there is the fixation with the 'death is the ultimate high' thing.

Where did this start?

It's actually one of the shared rites of passage myself and the Baker went through. We both talk about it sometimes. It was the same for both of us, that night. The night life changed forever. The night we both changed. Both suddenly saw the world in a way most people never will. The night mind altering drugs, altered our minds for good.
An end to physical fear. An end to fear of mortality. But an end also, to happiness the way ordinary people may find it.

The Opera House, Bournemouth. Summer 1998.

We weren't either of us big Ecstasy or Cocaine users then. We did use it, but not hugely.
We enjoyed it, but it wasn't everything.

This night, we got carried away. Any guy who asked us if we wanted more pills, got a 'yes' answer.
And we ended up taking three each in the space of five minutes.
On top of everything else (whatever that was, and neither of use at that point were used to triple dropping, though sadly I did later become so), this was a bit crazy.



Next thing I knew, I was a-flying.
Literally, it seemed.

Below was a beautiful city.
I could feel the wind blowing as I zoomed through the clouds.
Illuminated by night, thousands of lights, little silver craft flitting through the ziggurats.

Euphoria. Ecstasy. Orgasm.
It was an out of body experience, I've never felt so close.

And then I began to realise, it wasn't a city.
It was the floor. What I could see, was simply a strobe lighting effect.
I was lieing on some seats, next to the Baker. And I couldn't move.

I wondered if I'd ever move again. I was paralysed. And yet, my bloodvessels felt volcanic. My pulse raced, it was like a wind was blowing through my mind.

Am I overdosing, I wondered.
If I am, I don't care. If you had to pick a way to go, this surely is it.
Worth dieing, just to feel this.

And then it subsided. I shook the Baker and we attempted to reach the dancefloor.
I fell down a staircase, because I couldn't actually see it. It looked like flat carpet to me.

I pulled on the dancefloor as well, God knows how. She came from Hertfordshire, I know that.

Later, getting stoned, the Baker and I talked about it. He'd had almost word for word the same experience.
Even then, I said 'Our lives have changed. That was amazing. At one time, I thought this was just a uni thing, now I know; Coke and pills together are better than sex, better than anything. Nothing can possibly compare to what I felt tonight. Nothing. Even Joanna couldn't do that.'

This was six months after I'd split from Joanna, the only girl I ever loved.
I've never loved anyone since- or had any real hope I would.

I guess this experience changed me. The world really was different. Because every moment I've ever lived since, has fallen short. I've had moments which have come close, but there is always this idea that true euphoria lies right on the border of death, that you don't truly know you are alive, until you truly know you're going to die.

It dominated life ever after. The high points have been those sought after moments of euphoria, seeking to push closer and closer, nearer to that line, the liberating brink between life and death, the Ultimate High.

It's not been so much a Death Wish, as just a lack of concern, an indifference, sort of 'Well if I go, I go.'
Generally. You just don't care. And in a way, it's a strength, because people can tell. Death doesn't scare you.

I've only really started to move away from thinking like that recently. Started to feel that life in itself, could be beautiful.

I suppose things have started to emerge in life which kind of make you at least think of putting this high chasing on the back burner.
After all, I've got a blog to write, and that can't really happen if I'm engaged in playing Russian Roulette with chemicals.

And I want to see D's child at least take his first steps.
And a couple of other things.



I think I've actually spent about ten years trying hard to die one way or another without realising it, and it didn't quite pan out (Oh, they lie when they say smoking kills as well. Fifteen years of it! I want my money back!)

I think I'm almost getting reconciled to this life business.
Slowly :)

I think some of the people are worth sticking around for.

And I think I've still got things I need to do.
And to do them, I need to stay alive and keep posting.