So I’ve been thinking I should really get into heroin. Think about it: the most intense pleasure a human can ever experience. It’s actually rather depressing to think about. No matter whatever else one does, it could never bring as much pleasure – and pure, real, honest, sensual, unambiguous pleasure at that – as a hit of heroin. Sure, maybe you’ve had sex with the most highly trained and talented prostitutes in the world; okay, maybe you’ve piloted an advanced jet beyond the reaches of the earth’s atmosphere and into the nascent fringes of space; why not? maybe you’ve held your newborn son for the first time – but have you ever tried heroin? Nothing can compare. How could anything compare with every pleasure receptor in your brain orgasming at once?

I was telling all this to ------ a while ago and she started crying and begging me not to get into heroin, and made me promise that I wouldn’t.

But, see, I know that she only reacted that way because she loves me, and love is such a selfish thing. It’s not so much that she’s concerned for my welfare, but that she’s worried that if I were removed from her life that it would make her sad. And that’s lame. She just can’t find happiness in the fact that I could experience as much pleasure as is humanly possible, far more so than is ever attainable in humdrum day-to-day existence. The most difficult thing to procure in pursuit of one’s dreams is never the money nor the time, but the support of one’s loved ones. Sure, maybe I’ll pay a little for it, but wouldn’t *the most intense pleasure a human being can experience* be worth a little discomfort and pain? And besides, I don’t think that for a person like myself it is such a big sacrifice, since personally I’ve never been real big on showering and neurotically compulsive bowel control anyway. And could any human pain be less bearable than the crushing pain of daily mundanity?