The afterglow of prolonged psychedelic vacations (characterized by heightened awareness like psychedelic states) has dug up some rather interesting observations. More specifically, the "landing period" after a good psy festival that allows for some observations that usually are much harder to make, partly because we usually don't take notice of the majority of what we experience - we filter most of it out before we take note of it.
In the previous part of this series I mentioned the example of initiating conversation with a stranger based on reading her intent and taking it up for discussion as if she had said it specifically. Even more profound though is the interaction with kids in "civilization" right in the days after the festival when the awareness is still broadened.
Why are kids so special?
Well, as I've hinted at before, we tend to belittle kids in our society. It's not that we don't respect them per se, it's just that children are kinda treated like "humans on probation" as Alan Watts has called it. They are not really people until we have taught them all our (stupid and unreasonable) rules and they must be orderd around and indoctrinated until they finally conform to the norms of our constructed society and matrix, if I may put it so harshly. It often hurts me to see when the capability of a child is not being acknowledged by the parents but he is actually being schooled on how to behave differently, in a rather rude and unreasonable way.
Kids' imagination is actively downplayed all the time, we ignore what they have to share when it comes to feelings or observations that threaten the materialist paradigm most people take as the truth, and we constantly feel a need to reinforce our own notions onto them even in cases where their ideas are actually better or more to the point.
The thing is: Meeting kids after festivals drastically underscores their capabilities. All kids I have met.
I have often had it happen that kids - just like grown-ups on the dancefloor on a good lsd trip - can read subtext as easily as seeing a cloud in the sky. They can't only read it but speak it, play with it, pick up on it - they are fluent in subtext. So much so that sometimes a situation may turn slightly weird - not because of me or the kid, but because parents will be super slow to catch on to an energetic dialogue happening and then misinterpret in some fearful and distrustful way.
A kid may pick up on my being aware of him even when we only glance at one another at the opposite ends of the isle, and I will look at him with a nod just as if greeting a stranger on the dancefloor, aged 40.
"Hey dude. I see you. Namaste!"
And the kid will instantly greet back without hangup, he will even wave back to me or smile even when I haven't said a word. And despite his readiness to resoind to subtext there is usually this faint look of surprise on his face because most strangers do not greet him, especially not from across the isle and out of free volition in the utter certainty that the kid will "hear it".
And I've had it happen that the mom will pick up on the waving of her kid's hand and look my way with a puzzled face. Which is when it turns a bit weird usually, partly because she doesn't seem to know whether she should remember my face from somewhere or why her kid is waving at this stranger across the supermarket for no good reason. Why no words have been uttered and why now the shopping resumes without any follow-up conversation. It's often rather hilarious to witness and I have had it happen that the kid and I start to make fun of mom together because she doesn't get it, which is a lot of fun but can make for even weirder misinterpretations if I don't start talking to her rather quickly.
Kinda like the kid and me taking loving revenge on the parent for all the times the kid had to conform to stupid and superficial ways of doing things despite naturally being much much further ahead already.
On other occassions I had it happen days after a good lsd trip that kids turn around when in line just because they pick up on... something about my presence. And they smile at me with keen interest and intrigue, as if I had a funny hat on or something, which also weirds the parents out sometimes when they can't readily come up with whether they know me or not, just trying to be protecting and cautious I guess...
I think in general there is this odd sense of "don't talk to strangers" in our society, even when it would be the most normal thing in the world to talk with one another. Not acknowledging one another when looking at each other is the weird thing here, and everybody who has stood in a silent elevator with 5 people in their life will totally know what LOUD SUBTEXT feels like when there is audible silence in actual spoken word. This not acknowledging each other's being and presence is so common place in our civilization. Something that is the biggest thing to get over when arriving at a psy festival - because it somehow denies the other one something. Not sure what it is but anyone can feel that it is weird.
It has to do with respect and empathy to acknowledge the people we meet - kids are true masters at it before they are being taught otherwise. And everytime such a situation happens I do my best to acknowledge the kid's acknowledgment just to show him that not all adults are numb to their senses and to the layer of subtext that is always present when people happen to be in the same place, crossing each other's life path, if only for a moment.
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