170 • FLOWis a pleasant state of affairs, but it is only a misleading simulation of that
enjoyment that comes from increasing opportunities for actions and the
abilities to act.
Some people will disagree strongly with this description of how
drugs affect the mind. After all, for the past quarter-century we have
been told with increasing confidence that drugs are “consciousness-
expanding,” and that using them enhances creativity. But the evidence
suggests that while chemicals do alter the content and the organization
of consciousness, they do not expand or increase the self’s control over
its function. Yet to accomplish anything creative, one must achieve just
such control. Therefore, while psychotropic drugs do provide a wider
variety of mental experiences than one would encounter under normal
sensory conditions, they do so without adding to our ability to order
them effectively.
Many contemporary artists experiment with hallucinogens in the
hope of creating work as mysteriously haunting as those verses of the
Kubla Khan that Samuel Coleridge allegedly composed under the influ
ence of laudanum. Sooner or later, however, they realize that the compo
sition of any work of art requires a sober mind. Work that is carried out
under the influence of drugs lacks the complexity we expect from good
art—it tends to be obvious and self-indulgent. A chemically altered
consciousness may bring forth unusual images, thoughts, and feelings
that later, when clarity returns, the artist can use. The danger is that in
becoming dependent on chemicals for patterning the mind, he risks
losing the ability to control it by himself.
Much of what passes for sexuality is also just a way of imposing
an external order on our thoughts, of “killing time” without having to
confront the perils of solitude. Not surprisingly, watching TV and hav
ing sex can become roughly interchangeable activities. The habits of
pornography and depersonalized sex build on the genetically pro
grammed attraction of images and activities related to reproduction.
They focus attention naturally and pleasurably, and in so doing help to
exclude unwanted contents from the mind. What they fail to do is
develop any of the attentional habits that might lead to a greater com
plexity of consciousness.
The same argument holds for what might at first sight seem the
opposite of pleasure: masochistic behavior, risk taking, gambling. These
ways that people find to hurt or frighten themselves do not require a
great deal of skill, but they do help one to achieve the sensation of direct
experience. Even pain is better than the chaos that seeps into an un
focused mind. Hurting oneself, whether physically or emotionally, en