Weed made me view everyone from a different lens

Find out how to find human beings absolutely fascinating

I have one bone to pick with fellow humans.

Most dismiss other people as utterly boring and single-coloured, and as a former introvert myself, I can totally relate.

Small talk is exhausting. The banality is what keeps a lot of us sheltered in our cocoons, where we prefer our company to social scenarios.

By that, I don’t just mean parties where you build a connection with people you’ve never met before. It is also to do with how often you make an effort to know someone — old or new.

In fact, a lot of us don’t even know our parents all that well. The same people we were caged in with for the majority of our lives. Apart from knowing that they want you to eat well, sleep on time and excel in life, what do you know about what they want for themselves?

I was the same. Looking back, I feel disgusted with my self-inflated ego, the kind I have completely come to loathe. To the teenager I was, the world was divided into cool and the uncool and I wanted to make sure to not waste my effort with those I felt won’t contribute to my growth.

Boy, was I wrong.

So what changed me?

It was smoking marijuana. And lots of it.

Marijuana lowers your inhibitions and makes your mind trace your life to multiple flashbacks and back. You remember things you ordinarily wouldn’t have and muse over concepts that would seem too abstract to deconstruct.

I enjoy smoking up with people. With everyone’s inhibitions lowered than before, people begin to open up. They talk about their lives, their work, their passions with so much interest that it feels impossible, for that moment if not more, to not bask in their glow.

From a passive listener, I became an active one. And this journey has been life-changing.

What do I mean by an active listener? Someone who probes. I ask questions, I drill into people’s experiences, I make them relive memories and share all that they’ve learnt and endured. No, I don’t do it in an obnoxious prying manner, rather I give people the time and the confidence to open up.

Most people want someone to listen to them, after all, what would become of all that they’ve lived through.

If you lend them an ear, you gain a lot more in return

Once I truly opened my mind to others, I developed an insatiable curiosity to know more. To understand where people come from, to laugh at stories I know I would not be able to experience and comprehend pain that has made me a better person I believe.

You get to enjoy one lifetime — a finite set of experiences. But when you listen to others, you live and laugh vicariously and become a part of many.

I yearn now to listen to others’ stories. I have laughed, cried, experienced unbridled joy and learned so much once I changed my outlook that I decided to incorporate the habit of asking questions everywhere — dating apps, social media, my workplace, with my housekeepers, security guards — basically with every walking, talking human being.

I befriended a guy who tried to live as a homosexual just for the heck of it. I made friends with a girl who had visited 54 countries in two years and set camp with gipsies in Africa. I got to share the pain of someone who is a discrete paedophile and struggles with his desires every day. I learnt how the leather industry is not as evil as it is made out to be or how deep and unimaginable is the pain of parental abandonment — something I think I would never have known. The list is endless.

I know of life as a content writer, a software engineer, a yoga instructor, a pastry maker, an aquarium cleaner, a park ranger — all sorts of exciting professions. If I could, I would choose multiple rebirths to try out each job, but since that is out of the question, I rely on stories. Stories so profound that they make you question everything you know, everything you believe.

I learn, unlearn and relearn every day now.

So what’s the only takeaway I would want you to have?

Ask questions. The right questions at the right time. And see if you will ever find any human boring again. Try to throw out your existing biases and unleash an open mind, that would, in turn, power a bigger heart.

Your interest in others is no prerequisite. Don’t believe that your love for people would feed your desire to learn more.

It is the opposite. All that you learn is what would fuel your interest in others.