ASSIGNMENT

Write a 300 word or so essay that examines one of the questions listed below. (Again, 300 words is NOT a word “limit,” but just a guideline, something to shoot for when you are writing.)

Here are the questions:

1. At the foundation of Pollan’s understanding of the effects of marijuana is this idea that it allows us to “live in the ‘now’”? Briefly, how does marijuana allow us to live in the present, according to Pollan? Why is living in the present “pleasurable,” as Pollan sees it? Following Pollan’s thinking (or “logic”), why living in the now an experience of “innocence”? How is it “more alive” and “nearer to direct experience? How can it be profound and “revelatory”? (You don’t have to answer all these sub-questions. Just pick those that make your strongest case.)

2.Pollan turns to Aldous Huxley who discusses the effects of certain drugs in terms of opening the “reducing valve” through which we normally perceive. What does this mean? What is this “reducing valve”? Connect this idea with the idea of “living in the ‘now.’”

3. How does Pollan understand the phenomenon of “pot-sponsored” “epiphanies” appearing “banal” the “next day” (167 [149])? Talk about this in the context of “living in the ‘now.’” (Here, again, you can go (far) beyond what Pollan actually says if you examine this in light of how one is “living in the present” when high.)