I was once accused of possessing a controlled substance. At the time I felt it was rather unfair. Substance was something other people had or concerned themselves with. I was just a dude, a sole human in the wilderness trying to get away with it.
The local experts disagreed and I tell that tale elsewhere. For now, just know a Sheriff's Deputy ends up rummaging through my private parts. I'm not bragging about it, it felt somewhat violative. Of course, he probably does, the lonely bastard. It's his breath.
I skipped my court date. I didn't see a benefit in attending it. No thanks, your honor. Plus, I forgot about it.
But what in the world even is a substance? If folks are attempting to control it, should I know what it is? And would understanding it help me or my friends prevent themselves from being controlled as well? Who knows!
What is substance? If it exists, it has a history, though existence isn't required. And if it has a history, that gives me something to read and do instead of writing a bloody novel.
Let's do some philosophizing and see if we can't find out. Be warned, this thing gets dangerously metaphysical. Like Darkwing Duck got into your uncle's mushroom stash.
I usually see things in use before I'm told what they are or mean.
I saw my parents before I knew who or what they were. I saw a doctor's face before that. Grimacing, grumpy, and coming right at me. I'm told I screamed. I was born on Labor Day and he delivered me wearing his golf cleats.
I assume for extra grip. Old school doctors were hardcore.
Obviously, I encountered the use of the term substance sometime after that. An infant doesn't really have time for discussion when all they are is terrified and tit crazy.
I've heard it used to describe, in no particular order or consistent manner… drugs, tv shows, prostitutes, politics, color, physics, dog walking, haircuts, mental illness, mental fitness, honesty, pool water, hot dog water, my character, my lack of it, and on and on.
How confusing. I accept my character limits. But I'm not on trial here. There's a statute of limitations, so I can't be.
I've mentioned elsewhere dictionary definition isn’t helpful in determining meaning really, as all language is provisional. But so are laws, considering they're written in a language. So…
Merriam-Webster defines substance several different ways. So many ways you cannot find how it is defined. That’s how you know it’s nonsense.
Essential nature. What? Essential to what? And what does essential mean?
A fundamental or characteristic part or quality. Uh. I guess? A fundament is a butt, so I guess I'm listening.
Christian Science. Oh boy.
Ultimate reality that underlies all outward manifestations and change. Hey, that sounds real interesting, Moonbeam. I'll look into that.
Practical importance. It should read political importance. Typo there.
Physical material from which something is made or which has discrete existence. I don't know what most of those words mean, either.
Matter of particular or definite chemical constitution. I do like chemicals and constitutions.
Something (such as drugs or alcoholic beverages) deemed harmful and usually subject to legal restriction. This one is awful. If we have controlled substances, it implies we have uncontrolled substances, too. Do better, Dictionary.
Material possessions. What? Why is this even here?
Okay. The dictionary isn't helpful. The most relevant definition is a tautology. It assumes it is true in itself. I don't accept that, so I need more. Another ignores the uneasy fact not all substances are controlled.
And if I accept substance is only a drug, I find a most unsatisfying question which can only be answered by Congress and law. That way lies madness. No thanks, your honor.
But this was expected. I wouldn't have written this thing if it wasn't.
Having burned the dictionary, we are now free. I wager we should abuse that freedom.
Rather than become firefighters, volunteer at a soup kitchen, or be heroes for even one day, let's see what philosophers got on it, instead. I’ll ignore politicians entirely, since they just plagiarize the philosophers.
Or rather, their speech writers do. Very few politicians have brains.
The old philosophers did debate substance it turns out. Because they had nothing better to do. The novel wouldn't be invented in Japan for another twelve centuries or so.
To the Greeks, substance was a sort of building block for reality.
They more or less pegged the Cosmos as made up of four substances. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. These should seem familiar to any Captain Planet fans.
Heart wasn't one of them. The ancients didn't include token substances in their discourse. What value did that character bring to that show, anyway?
He just showed up, yelled heart, and made me change the channel to the one other channel we had at the time. Maybe that Avatar Airbender Whatever show would've been a better example. I haven’t seen it. But I hear they have a Fire Island or something in it.
Either way, the old thought-critters of Greece also fought over which substance was dominant, or best and highest, over the others. My substance can beat up your substance. That kind of thing.
They did this endlessly and it never got anywhere. But it is evidence the human mind cannot tolerate a pluralistic situation. That is, a diverse distribution of just about anything. Including something so nebulous as substance. We mislabel it chaos.
I hope we outgrow the tendency some day.
I won’t go into the details, other than to pick a dead horse in a long dead race. Because I like his name.
Heraclitus of Halicarnassus claimed Fire was the bee's knees. Change comes from conflict and that means fire, baby. Since the world is ever changing, the world is fire. Metaphysics. 1
I am sympathetic to this argument. But he killed himself - accidentally - treating his dropsy by burying himself in cow manure. It isn’t relevant, but I always like to point that out. Because metaphysicians make horrible physicians.
Taking a brief break during my own info dump here, treat yourself by saying Heraclitus of Halicarnassus out loud. I'll wait. It's poetry. Don't say out loud out loud, though. Ruins it.
Feel free to play with it. This essay isn't going anywhere. It'll be here. No one is going to censor it.
I mean, I don't mention the botched public health response to COVID-19 even once. Or how Pfizer's well tested vaccine laid me out with lips the size of legislation granting them immunity from lawsuits. I'm told there are no long-term side effects.
Heraclitan Halicarnassians. Halicarnassian Heracliti. Halitosian Heraclitus. Heroicitis Habicannabinasus. Hera’s Clit. Out loud. Loud heraclitoris. Out loud.
The problem, so far as I can tell, is they didn’t know they were dealing with infinity. But that’s another problem for another time. At least they mostly stuck to stuff they could touch. Like fire and poop.
That didn't stop early Christians from giving it a go. My God can beat up your god. That kind of thing. But the downstream implications were fairly severe this time around. Worse than suicide by manure.
Because political power had centralized and granted itself authority it didn’t deserve.
I'm going to fast forward from Heraclitians to the Arian Controversy. That's around six centuries. So far as I can tell, this is when the government first steps in to regulate and control substance.
This mostly peaceful theological discussion took place in the 4th century. I say mostly peaceful, because that's how folks in the 21st century describe riots and I am a dull, stupid man of my time.
But people in the 4th century, despite arguing about substance to the point they killed, still recognized an angry inferno when they saw it. It is hot, you see, and there is a lot of screaming. It's all the change in the air. 2
Also, this Arian Controversy shouldn't be confused for the Aryan Controversy stamped out by most the world in the 1940s. That has very little to do with substance and everything to do with politics and racist, central power.
Funny how such a tiny difference in spelling can mean such different things. Words, man. They weird me out. I’m never quite sure if I hate them or not. Heh. Heraclitians.
Where was I? I got all hot and bothered talking about history. I love that stuff. Let's see… useless dictionary, useless philosophers, iatrogenic induced idioma, Grammar Nazi joke… ah. Yes! Christian substance riots. Back on track.
A debate kicked off in Christian circles regarding whether Jesus was of the same substance as God or not. Jesus was a separate entity, so they'd run into an issue where they actually seemed to have three gods instead of one. Woopsy! That’s a sin!
Was the Son the issue of the Father's loins? Did the Father even have loins? Does that mean Jesus was human and not God? One camp fiercely and violently argued sort of.
Substance. They weren't talking marijuana and moonbeams here. A similar but different substance meant Jesus was a human being. A most admirable one - a sentiment I share - but a fallible human being.
To some Christians, this wasn't the case. They argued the Father and the Son were of the same substance. He can inject himself into his creation. The implication here is Jesus was God, too. But I guess mortal. Ish.
Mobs coalesced around these two competing abstracts on a substance no one could touch and got about killing each other over it. Everyone was required to have an opinion on the thing and it resembled Twitter quite a lot.
It seems an odd thing to be homicidally passionate about. How the only god in all of the universe procreates. The world's most violent, blind taste test of different branded colas. Coca Cola Catholic won, so far as the law was concerned.
Except you couldn't touch any of it. Not only was it entirely abstract, Jesus was watching.
After enough men, women, and children died during the national conversation, the authority of the State came smashing down to dictate exactly how it actually worked. Binary-fission Jesus carried the vote at the Council of Nicaea. Jesus was officially God.
This isn’t odd for the Roman State. Once they’d given up on public democracy, they began deifying their Caesarian slave masters. Until this period, they’d tolerated more than a single god. It wasn’t any big thing to just add another.
But Jesus was at stake this time. So there would be blood.
Any dissenters speaking against, or simply not supporting the ruling enough, were zealously executed as the heretics they obviously were. Cancel culture had officially arrived with the backing of central power. Compelled speech in the form of creed.
Spiritual matters between an individual and their God or gods were now officially made a slave to history and politics. And all that peace and love stuff they claimed to be worried about? Not worried about it.
It was probably all just a metaphor anyway. Throwing stones was the bee's knees and as we all know, only heretics don’t Support the Current Thing.
It makes one wonder. If God has power over man, how did man regulate his reproductive system? I don’t know, personally. But they did.
Substance seems strange and I doubt I could murder a stranger over it. Or arrest one. But I'm not a Catholic cop. Looking at you, Mr. President. 3
Okay. We kind of have an idea what substance-lovers think substance is. A vague sort of substitute for things we can touch and things we can't. We also have an example of what politics can do to people.
Turn it violent. It's a problem. So what?
Let's mercy-kill the problem with its own gun. That's what. But metaphysically and without fire or bullets or clubs. That’s not my way. I leave it to the State to be a beast. Render unto Caesar, and all that. 4
There is quite a bit of history between the Nicene Creed - the compelled birth control chant - and our next philosopher concerned with substance. But I'm skipping it and moving thirteen centuries ahead. It's all blood and fire and darkness, anyway.
In the 17th century, a Jewish fellow named Baruch Spinoza gave substance a rather serious ponder. He ignored everything that didn't matter, like the virgin birth story, or whether water evaporates, and came to a most satisfying conclusion because of it.
No blood or fire necessary. Just reason. So, naturally, he was excommunicated and cursed with all the curses in the Book of Law. Why, you ask? What could be so hostile to reason? Why, politics, of course!
My Man Spinoza got cancelled before it was cool. And cancel culture warriors have never been cool. I mentioned I love history, which is precisely why those troglodytes give me the willies. I’m familiar with their work and their motivations.
Now, I'm going to attempt to explain Spinoza in five hundred words. I am going to fail. It is fairly deep stuff and I'm afraid I am not terribly intelligent or handsome or interesting. But I hope it gives my readers something to consider.
Spinoza begins by assuming the existence of God. This is forgivable, even by heathen atheists like me, as he uses God and reality interchangeably. They are the exact same thing to him, and we all have to live in accordance with God as reality. Or we die. Easy.
This doesn’t mean don’t give your boyfriend a smooch under the bleachers without him having put a ring on it first. It means you shouldn’t eat Tide Pods. The thought one can happily chug laundry detergent without dying is an inadequate idea.
Living according to nature’s law is an adequate idea. Because you don't die.
The sentiment which likely produced Spinoza’s cancellation revolves around the idea there is only one substance. Not two, not four, not eight billion, or however many Mountain Dew flavors there are by now.
That one substance is called reality, or God, or the universe, or the multiverse for comic book fans. Everything comes from that one thing and so everything is that one thing. God, humans, Kardashians, pineapple pizza. Everything. 5
You could consider this one substance matter, reality, or existence itself. God, too. Because they are the same thing to Spinoza. CANCELLED!
Matter is everywhere, even waves, sunlight, etc. Empty space isn’t even empty space. But that’s a matter of matter and physics. Spinoza was interested in metaphysics. And geometry.
But he was still correct, so far as I know. Thus far, it seems an adequate idea to me. At least, adequish. If you think otherwise, send me some mushrooms and we can talk about it.
Through 300 pages of Latin, Spinoza reduces all proposed substances to one. All instances of the same infinite substance rearranged into different modes or configurations. And after those 300 pages, I in turn reduced it to zero.
If there is only one substance, then there is no substance. It is a phantom of the mind. An inadequate idea one comes to when considering the reality around and inside them. The idea of substance only matters insofar as we call it matter now.
Even if those bishops look absolutely fabulous as they regulate not only their own God’s, but everyone else’s reproductive systems, too. Seriously. Look at those dresses. Versace, unless I miss my guess.
I don’t allow politicians, judges, or puffed up hall monitors to interfere in spiritual matters. Or physical ones, apparently.
No thanks, your honor.
So, hopefully, I come to the point at last.
Shouldn't we put this idea of substance away and understand we are one rather than many? I don't see a benefit in the separation. It only creates strife. And a prison-industrial complex.
We could improve by removing it and letting it trouble us no more. One less phantom excuse to be cruel. No doubt we don't talk about it in the same way we used to. But the mechanism is still there producing similar results.
I suspect we’d be a bit better off. Or at least we’d be a bit less paranoid whenever we’re getting high. Which I would also like. Blue and red flashes don’t need to make your balls retreat through your gut into your throat.
Hah! Can you imagine? Not on drugs you can't. Not without Congressionally dictated paranoia and fear. At least Cardinals know how to dress. Congresspeople just wear ties and the latest Tipper Gore fashion line.
Sure, political agents would lose a bit of power by being forced to return it to the people. Each individual would be responsible for determining if they want to toke up or not. The horror. Whatever shall we do?
Send me some mushrooms and we can talk about that.
Recall the police have been directed by Congress to control certain substances. Congress believes there are multiple substances. Silly! We don’t exactly have experts out there in D.C.
We have a ton of inadequate ideas, instead.6
But Robert! They just mean drugs! You junky anarchist, what the hell? Way to miss the point, fool! Marijuana is the devil’s lettuce! God is sick of your Satan stuff! Just look at how many unsubscribed last time!
I know, and your criticism is correct. But we are carrying on the unbroken tradition of killing each other over substance still and once again, the State is behind it.
Let's get the State out of the substance game. They're not supposed to be regulating this stuff anymore.
The good news for me - determined through the benefit of hindsight - is skipping a hot date with that judge was a most adequate idea. I got away with it. I didn’t know that at the time, of course.
Not everyone is so stupidly lucky. You won't be. So don't get caught. Not even God is free from busybody legislators, it seems.
Man. Substance. I mean, I just wanted to smoke some pot at a rock concert, and this is what I get. Dudes burying themselves in crap? Riots over reproduction? The logical backing for an idea we are all a united organism?
Human beings enslaving GOD? Even I know we can’t do that and attempts to do so are inadequate ideas. Do you want another flood or something? If not, legalize marijuana. Or decriminalize it. Whatever.
Doing so seems at least an adequish idea.
Still, if there is only one substance after all, then I suppose I can offer God some advice. Just say no thanks, your honor.
I'm actually on your side on this one. Send me some mushrooms so we can talk about it.
Sic vivitur.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
103rd U.S. Congress, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
Mark 12:17
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order
91st U.S. Congress, Controlled Substances Act