I’m mentioning that branded online therapy service again because I’ve been hearing ads for it again on the podcasts I subscribe to. I think with my discussions on my blog about my recreational drug use with cannabis and my concern about the risk of anxiety and paranoia caused by cannabis, it has become prime fodder for mental health advertisers.

I tried talk therapy a few years ago now when I was coming out of the pandemic and my troubled obsessive thoughts about burn barrels, and rural trash burning. I really like fire, I had looking at those ugly mounds on the outskirts of cities used for dumping garbage. I’ve burned plenty of trash over the years, keeping it out of the landfill, much to the disdain of my greenie friends and the environmental conservation regulations adopted in 2009 by Commissioner Pete Grannis, the New York City liberal former Assemblyman who worked in the office next to the office I was an intern in.

My therapist was in the basement of a rundown office building of Colvin Avenue. While he never suggested that I try cannabis to reframe my mind – he did mention his own trips to Massachusetts to procure it for himself. Maybe he was trying to drop a hint to me. I had previously smoked pot on some work trips with colleagues but until it was fully legal in New York never on my own. The THC in the drug may or may not have given me mental clarity but learning and thinking a lot more about our nation’s policy towards cannabis certainly has. It really got me thinking about situational morality and the law, and in many cases breaking the law and what risks that entails versus what is right for myself. The law is not something to be blindly respected though one must way the risks and consequences to not obeying the law.

I smoked pot during summer vacation on federal land, well aware of the potential serious consequences even though I don’t think I all the years I’ve been to the Finger Lakes National Forest seen a federal ranger. And chances are even if they spotted the blunt, it would get confiscated and maybe ticketed or just ignored because I was being quiet and not causing trouble. The federal ban on cannabis is stupid and everybody knows that even though there are still powerful advocates for the status quo left in law enforcement and the addiction recovery community that profit from the way things are now.

The truth is nobody cares if you’re a pyromaniac if you’re not harming anyone and nobody sees your fires or smells the smoke. It’s not unlike smoking pot, another dirty disfavored thing in society that is legal in some jurisdictions and highly illegal in others. Legal or illegal doesn’t mean moral or immoral. It just opens you up to the risk of prosecution if somebody in the government decides to make a big deal about it or somebody goes complaining to the police, armed with the law in their hands. Law is about enabling and limiting power, it doesn’t create it or pass moral judgment. People burn all kinds of shit, some quite noxious in BFE Pennsylvania, I know I was there only a few months back.

Truth is that real question in my mind shouldn’t be the morality of the law or taking hardened sides of what is right or wrong. I can’t change that. But the real question is what do I want to do with my life, what is the life I want to live and when do I leave or do I build or buy a house here? That’s not something that is obvious as there are options that all have their advantages and downsides. Maybe it’s not a diagnosable condition. I do like that grass is legal in New York and if I had land I would try to grow it. But I would have to be careful what I burn on my own land with the state restrictions. It’s not Pennsylvania. And despite how expensive everything is these days – I do make good money compared to most as as the Data Services director – and even basic cost of living adjustments are bigger the more you make. And I might not have a lot of skills – is R even a real programming language – but I have several years of experience in management now and I do some cool and useful things with R for my job.

My therapist always was critical of my labeling of myself as mentally ill. Just because you like things that aren’t locally politically popular doesn’t mean you are crazy. Maybe I just needed to smoke some grass and think more about the world around me. Maybe that’s the help I ultimately needed. Still I need to figure out my housing situation and what I want to do for the rest of my life or at least the next year if I don’t commit too deeply.