Doing drugs is like anything else - predicated on taste, refinement, dignity, distinction, and originality. Cocaine is not cool, because it makes people act cartoonishly fiendish, and that is undignified.

Doing drugs is like anything else - predicated on taste, refinement, dignity, distinction, and originality. Cocaine is not cool, because it makes people act cartoonishly fiendish, and that is undignified.

Simply because you take drugs does not mean you are an expert on them. In fact, there seems to be an inverse relationship between drug consumption and drug knowledge: more of the former results in less of the latter. If that seems obvious, you have probably gone easy on the former, though this relationship only applies to curious people who are seriously interested in drugs.

There was a Russian cult of eunuchs known as the Skoptsy who were renowned for their proficiency as mathematicians, bankers, and moneylenders. Outsiders called them rapacious but this was simply their jealousy speaking - when one is freed from sexual desire, or sexual desire is transmuted into work, suddenly the world becomes engorged with possibilities.