Internet is the new LSD

Today I talked about my inspiration for blogging on the Web 2.0 Symposium in Budapest. I wanted to give the audience something to think about, instead of just give them an insight in my blogging mind. So I made a comparison between LSD and the Internet.

I came up with that comparison when I visited the exhibition Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era in The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It showed what the hippies were all about: their ideas about sexual revolution, equal rights and anti-war attitude were revolutionary back then. Yet because they fought so hard for it, we consider them normal now.

The hippies were partly inspired by LSD: the greatest musicians used it for their songs, gonzo journalists like Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the trips he had and Timothy Leary researched the effects. The last one called upon everybody to turn on, tune in and drop out: explore several states of consciousness, join the movement and say goodbye to the materialistic society.

Leary, who had received a master’s degree at Washington State University in 1946, and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950, started a LSD promotion tour. He inspired many men and women to take a different view on modern-day society. Unfortunately he lost his job as lecturer in psychology at Harvard and eventually ended up in jail for a while. For many people though, he’s a still an enlightened hero.

For some reason I experience a weird nostalgic feeling about this summer of love. It doesn’t make sense though, since it all took place 19 years before I was born. I think I just love the idea of fighting for new values and opinions. Yet I won’t put my hands on LSD and the summer of love is only experienced by toothless hobo’s. So how can I experience the feeling of this time?

Dutch journalist Freek Staps interviewed an old hippie last year and asked what’s left of those good old days. The bittered man answered:

„Not these days. The age today is so different. ‘Be Here Now’ was the slogan then. Now with cell phones and the Internet and all, it’s ‘Be Somewhere Else Now.”

And the Internet, that’s a phenomenon I really love. I even live of it. So how can I turn this awkward nostalgic feeling into action? By listening to Timothy Leary again. A few years before he died, he said:

,,Internet is the LSD of the 1990s”

The picture Leary drew, becomes more vivid everyday. The nineties are behind us, yet NOW the web is like LSD was in the sixties. It’s called Web 2.0, the blogosphere, a place where everybody can pick up the digital pen and start publishing their stories. Multinationals are attacked by bloggers, governments have to face a critical mass on a daily basis and people with the same passion find each other. Protesters gather on the web and at the same time is a treasure room filled with millions of galleries with photos, videos and web art (have a look at WebCanvas, it’s a perfect example).

This thought inspires me: I’m part of a new revolution. I can write, publish and say what I want, when I want, and moreover, I have an audience without the help of some company. But I won’t make the same mistake as some of the LSD users. They didn’t see LSD as a means, but thought of it as the ultimate goal.

The same can happen with Web 2.0. I won’t focus on getting as many followers as possible. I’ll try to motivate and inspire the small group that’s following me. Like Tim O’Reilly said during Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco: “focus on big hairy audacious goals”. I’m gonna do just that.

Interesting links

• Read a Dutch story I wrote about this theory on cultural blog Sargasso.
• BBC: Bedtime for Gonzo?
• TIME: Was Leary right?
• Skulluminati Research: Timothy Leary’s Message to You, Here, Now

The presentation

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The Tim O’Reilly talk

Some other posts you might be interested in:

• Father of LSD Albert Hoffman on his final trip
• Pick your medium. Every day