Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

I once had a friend in college who was probably the single biggest influence on who I am today. We lived together during one of the most intellectually formative years of my life. What I remember most about him is that he was always challenging my beliefs. For him, nothing was more sacred than truth. And perhaps his own hedonistic pleasure. He was a genius beyond all question, but was particularly adept when it came to biology and chemistry. He tirelessly demonstrated how small amounts of different chemicals could alter one's perception of the world. You could name a drug and he would give you the chemical structure, formula, and how it would effect your body.

As you might have guessed, he idolized the mind of Timothy Leary. He once showed me a photograph of a young Timothy Leary and told me that the light photons captured by the film had once touched Timothy Leary, but that his words transcended light and sound and continue to travel at the speed of thought. He explained to me that Timothy Leary once said that LSD is just a powder... that the real power to change your thoughts is achievable without drugs, but that LSD has the power to take your prejudices and preconceptions and jumble them up. It gives you a new opportunity to look at reality without a filter. I was inspired and looked more into Mr. Leary's philosophy.

You may be familiar with the phrase "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out". Although most people are dismissive of these words as hippy jibberish, they actually contain quite a bit of profundity. Mr. Leary was no fan of the cultish hippies, nor was he a fan of authority. He was a proponent of freedom for the individual mind. His philosophy for obtaining individual freedom was encapsulated in this phrase. In his own words:

'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end.

'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives.

'Drop Out' suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change.

Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.

If you know me, you can probably see how I apply these principles to my life. Of course, I've the further benefit of many decades of scientific research and philosophical inquiry upon which to build my own intellectual freedom, but there is nothing I have found to contradict the value of Mr. Leary's wisdom.

In his later years, Timothy Leary submitted a new phrase, "Turn On, Boot Up, Jack In," that spoke with optimism about the capacity of computers to liberate human thought. Before his death in 1996 he only saw the very beginnings of what the Internet would make possible for humanity, but he predicted the great awakening of human thought and potential that we are seeing across the world today. Perhaps I am biased in the sources I select, but it seems that the most intelligent human beings to have ever written on the subject of individual freedom have always looked toward technology as the lifeblood of free thought.

I am very in debt to my old friend for having tuned me in and turned me on to the value of the individual mind. I am always indebted of anyone who gives me the tools to think.

Sadly, my friend committed suicide nearly one year ago. I don't know why. It makes no sense to me. Perhaps he felt that the world he wanted to live in was an impossible dream. He often wished people would not lie as much as they do. I very much wish the same. I intend to do my part, however small it may be, to make the world a happier place for those who wish to live honestly.

RIP Dr. Roberds.