Comments on: On a literary trip

By: jakobh

jakobh — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:51:00 +0000

Tempus fugit pills from Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters.
“I always carry a tube of “tempus fugit” pills; most agents do, as one never knows when giving your reflexes a jolt will get you through a tight spot. Despite the scare propaganda, tempos pills are not habit-forming, not the way the original hashish is.
Nevertheless a purist would say I was addicted to them, for I had the habit of taking them occasionally to make a twenty-four hour leave seem like a week. I admit that I enjoyed the mild euphoria which the pills induced as a side effect. Primarily, though, they just stretch out your subjective time by a factor of ten or more, chop time into finer bits so that you live longer for the same amount of clock and calendar.
What’s wrong with that? Sure, I know the horrible example story of the man who died of old age in a calendar month through taking the pills steadily, but I took them only once in a while.
Maybe he had the right idea. He lived a long and happy life‚Äîyou can be sure it was happy‚Äîand died happy at the end. What matter that the sun rose only thirty times? Who is keeping score and what are the rules anyhow?”

By: rdk

rdk — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:06:43 +0000

Vaughan, thanks for the great post.
I might add to the list the fictional drug Salon from Douglas Coupland’s recent book Generation A. He describes the effect as a distortion of one’s sense of time, which makes it perfect for people who want time to pass faster, like prisoners and those with boring jobs. The effect is compared to that of being absorbed in a good book, and there are all sorts of interesting metaphysical consequences associated with it.

By: lerandia

lerandia — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:10:42 +0000

M’kay, yes…fictional drugs. Ah, check please?
This reminds me of the last time I got a letter of referral from psych professor and she proceeded to recommend various beers for me to try (some were very good, in case you are wondering).
I ‘spose, as a college student, I get all the hallucinations I need from sleep deprivation and a lack of adequate nutrition. I see there is still so much for me to learn. ^_^
Cute post; thanks for the grins and giggles.