Earlier this month, my brother and I got tickets to see Argentina play against Canada in the Conmebol Copa America at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and naturally we smoked a bit before heading over. Gorging on pulled pork and sipping cold cans of Stella Artois till our stomachs hurt, it didn’t take long for my mind to stop focusing on the game itself and start philosophizing about what sports events like this represented on an abstract level.
The sweaty players, tiny as ants from my viewpoint, struck me not as professional athletes but pretend hunter-gatherers pitted against each other in a fight for survival and victory that pushed their bodies to the limit. Conversely, the 70,000 or so people in the stands struck me not as spectators but alien overlords, watching the bloodbath in the way the ancient Romans would have watched gladiators battle in the Colosseum.
These overlords, I mused, were rather content with their having risen above the unforgiving state of nature, drowning themselves in food and drink while others fought for their lives for their amusement. But, so I imagined, they also felt ashamed, perhaps because they knew that – deep down – they were not living life the way human beings were supposed to, unlike those on the field.
I cringe a little when I look back at the misspelled notes I jotted down on my phone during halftime – but only a little. By and large, I tend to be quite happy with the stuff I write when I’m high. And I write high quite a lot. For years now, I’ve indulged in small amounts of weed whenever I’m working on challenging journalistic projects. Not only because it takes away some of the pressure I put on myself, helping me jump over sporadic bouts of writer’s …
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Author: Tim Brinkhof / High Times
