The Life and Times of a Neurotic Chiller

So laid back, yet so high-strung

Have you ever found yourself alone in a place of pristine wilderness, of untouched natural beauty, utterly relaxed, without a care in the world, totally disconnected from modern life and its myriad pressures, until suddenly and without warning, some piddling thought comes barging in from the depths of nowhere, roiling the surface of your zen stillness and refusing to subside?

It can be anything, too, often something trivial or unlikely or of little consequence, and wholly unrelated to the immediacy of the present.

Like, for example, having your moments-before blissful indifference instantly exchanged for an unwelcome and incessant fretting, as your mind begins fixating on the slim probability that that red light you ran through on your way out of town (actually, not red; more like the scarlet side of orange), that it might have had a camera on it, meaning there’s an off-chance you now have a large and unpleasant fine awaiting you at some point in the indeterminate near future after you get home from your hike (even though you probably, and in fact, don’t).

And speaking of home, did you forget to lock the front door? Turn off the stove? Close the refrigerator? Are you sure? Oh yeah, and you need to pick up more cat food.

Wow, that sure is a pretty view, though.

Or how about this scenario?

You’re lying on your back naked, with a beautiful naked girl doing beautiful naked girl things to you, and yet against all reasonable protestations of both biology and decorum, you find your mind wandering unbidden to the mysteries of dark energy and its role in the accelerating expansion of the universe. Or, for some reason, you start thinking about breakfast cereal mascots. Seriously, what the fuck?

Or here’s a winner.

Have you ever purposely gotten ridiculously high right before some important or official event that you know you really oughtn’t be high at, that you know being so is only going to make needlessly sketchier and more nerve-wracking, and yet you do so anyway, in full knowledge and volition, because you’re fairly confident it’ll be mellow despite all that?

Welcome to the world of the neurotic chiller. Welcome to my world.

Twenty-some years ago, I was in Amsterdam with my best friend, sitting in a coffeeshop with a huge, still-smoking bong and an assortment of high-grade nuggets of sticky chronic on the table before us, all of it perfectly legal and legit — the only such place on Earth at the time — and it was epic. It was the surreal culmination of a long-planned dream. Two twenty-something scrubs living it up to the fullest in a place and condition of continual, mellow debauchery.

I remember gazing around the room at the surrounding tables and meeting the gaze of some fellow chillers chilling in the exact same way, a knowing look of mutual understanding mutually exchanged. And you’d think it would be an instant connection, an instant invitation to comradery, a connecting of like-minded bohemians.

But alas. Way too fucking stoned.

Long-conditioned caution and paranoia took over — for both parties — and gazes were quickly averted. Overthinking went into overdrive.

“Maybe they weren’t even looking at me. Maybe there’s a TV or a hot chick behind me or something. Maybe it’d be mass weird if I just rolled over there unsolicited to say hi. I don’t know. They probably don’t even speak English. Or they were probably making fun of us stupid Americans or trash-talking Dubya. Fuck it.”

Does that even still count as chilling? Can one be too chill to interact? Isn’t that just shyness or laziness?

And is that all that chilling comes down to in the end? Shyness and laziness? That doesn’t seem very chill.

But if that’s really its essence, does being active and spontaneous and outgoing counteract it? And is doing so thus desirable? I thought chilling was supposed to be the Hokey Pokey (as in, that’s what it’s all about!)

Riddled with confidence yet riven with self-doubt. What’s a high-strung stoner/chiller to do?

There was a time before religion took on an all-encompassing role in society, yet a time before science as we know it existed to do the same; a time when philosophy and philosophical inquiries dominated insights into life and living. And for rabidly irreligious explorers of chemically-induced altered states, of thoughts and emotions and perceptions untainted by dogma and preconceptions and sobriety, such inquiries dominate still.

Am I a stoner because I’m chill? Am I chill because I’m a stoner?

Am I a stoner because I’m neurotic? Am I neurotic because I’m a stoner?

These are the questions that haunt me. They’re also questions, the answers to which I couldn’t give a fuck about in the slightest. As Popeye said, “I am what I am.”

Yet they haunt me still.

(That’s the neurotic part. The not giving a fuck’s the chill part.)

Which one dominates?

Depends on the day. Depends on the moment. Depends on the dosage. Depends on the weather.

Speaking of, what’s with this weird weather lately? Oh, yeah. Climate change. Fuck. Ahhh! We’re all fucked! Or maybe not. It’s chill. We’ll sort it out. Fuck it.

You see what I mean?

I don’t know any other way to live than the way I do. And I don’t think I’d want to know. I largely love my life. And I largely love the way I live it.

That is, until I go sideways on something and can’t let it go. Or I want to but can’t be bothered to. Or I can’t decide, so I just wait it out and win by attrition.

But sometimes, like many forms of unpleasantness, it returns, often with a vengeance. And when it does, fuck!

But then again, fuck it. Why worry? It’s all chill!

That is, unless or until it isn’t. But even then, it still is. Isn’t it?

Colby Hess is a freelance writer and photographer from Seattle, and author of the freethinker children’s book The Stranger of Wigglesworth.

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