A crazy rant about a different kind of trip.

What's my best trip? Is it what I'm supposed to believe the best trip is? What they’ve told me the best trip is. An afternoon at the lake, a road trip across America with the family stuffed in the car, a journey to discover myself. Backpacking across Europe, polaroid pictures of smiling faces. Because that's what we're supposed to believe the best trips are, right? But, what if I told you that was wrong? That, that was all wrong. Because those are nice, but those are not the best trips; those are vacations.

The best trips are drug-induced indulgences spent flying across galaxies inside your mind. You know Outerspace, man. Far out beyond anything "normal people" have ever thought. I'm talking about a complete expansion of the mind. Take a trip, drop acid. That's what the philosophers did. You think Socrates was drinking tea and saying things like philosophically speaking. No way. Socrates was eating mushrooms and seeing dancing cartoon bears when he came up with all the stuff we studied at private universities and public schools where the government, the organization that rules everything, told us what vacations and trips were supposed to be.

Screw that, I say make up your own definitions. We don't need dictionaries with all their oppressive meanings. Freedom, that's the holy grail of emotions, and freedom is expression at its core. The right of a single person with blood and hair and skin and self thinking thoughts to define themselves. What's my best trip? My best trip is a Dodge Aspen Super Coupe, loud music with miles of pavement stretching out on interstates, blue skies, the Florida sun, crazy New Orleans nights during Mardi Gra, little squares of paper with blue ink on them that made time fold in on itself, and days that melted together. That's my best trip. Seeing the world in a new light and not understanding what was in that light. Watching little demons dance on the architecture of buildings in the French Quarter, tasting copper, and noticing how strange my jaw felt when I tried to talk to people whose words kept blending together.

Have you ever watched a billboard break apart and fall down in pieces like some kind of graphic waterfall while you were driving down the road? You ever watch stoplights flash on and off like neon signs telling your mind when to go and when to stop? I have, folks. I've sat in a park in the French Quarter with an imprisoned freight train engine trapped on a misplaced piece of track that told me not to let them get me down, while I couldn't stop noticing how green the grass was, taking a hit from a joint, responding "I'm already down, man" and listening to my friends say "what" again and again.

Life’s a trip, people. Every single minute. Each one a journey from here to there. Some mean more. Some mean less, but they're all a trip, that's the truth. Advice. Advice is a good word. But be careful where you get it from. Not all of it is good. A lot of it is bad. But, here's a good one. Question Authority. Don't listen to what they tell you. These Challenge makers. Who are they, anyway? Make your own challenges. Live. Say it again. Live. None of us are sane. This is a wild place, man. Keep good vibes and groove on. Because cool beans, there's a whole world out there. Sometimes you just gotta go out and find a place where you can wake up in the morning, look at where you rested your head, and think, this is fucking crazy.

Okay, focus. Back to what this grouping of typed letters is supposed to be about. The best trip I ever had, right, that's why we're here. That's what we're talking about. Not the rules of this oppression perpetrated by the Vocal Administrators, because let’s be honest, the administrators are just tiny invisible creatures who live inside our computers going over every word we type. Judging us. But creativity can't be judged. It has to be appreciated. Creativity is the ultimate form of psychedelic discovery. It's you taking the drugs of your own mind and expanding your own Universe.

My best trip is three friends discovering the truth behind society's lies. Driving hundreds of miles, staying in a cheap hotel outside of The Big Easy and watching Lucy dance in the sky with diamonds for a while. What do I remember about that mind-bending journey? Everything and Nothing. I remember horses marching down the street telling us we had to leave. I don't remember how we got there, where those fucking horses came from, or how we got back to the car, but I remember beads, hurricane drinks, naked flashers, and inhibitions we left lying in the streets.

"Turn on, tune in, drop out." Timothy Leary, the icon, the symbol of American counter-culture, said that and entitled a book with it. He believed altering your mind was an important part of any life, of any journey of growth. I don't know if I agree with that. I'm not an advertisement for drugs. I'm just saying if you have a couple of days you can spare, take a hit. Take a few hits because if you're going to do it, do it right. Spend days on the other side of reality. Because the view there is spectacular.

Finally, to comply with the guidelines and stay within the guard rails, here's a photo, not of the trip. I don't have any, but our lovely administrators only said it had to be original. They didn't say anything about a photo from a specific time or place. Just an original one embedded in the article. So here you go.

And that's how we beat their systems, folks. How we take down their efforts to control. We gotta find the gaps, the spaces between the bars they leave inside their prisons of confinements, to create our own space. To be rebels. To not conform. To find our own paths. To be weird and get freaky.

In closing, take everything I've said with a grain of salt. This is just a collection of shits and giggles. Here's to hoping you stay yourself no matter what they tell you to be. Here's to taking a trip, to opening up, and finding new adventures. Just remember this little mantra that's always served me well. Moderation in everything, too much and not enough, of anything is bad. Now go forth and explore. And refuse to get trapped in the boxes society wants to put you in. And no matter what you have going on or what you have facing you, always keep in mind why the Caged Bird Sings. The Caged Bird sings because the song is freedom.