I met a friend for a couple of beers today, commiserating with him over what, potentially, could be his second divorce. En route home I had the music blasting, a rarity for me these days what with the kids living with me.

The slight alcohol buzz in addition to the music led to some real jubilation, and it got me to thinking about something. First, what was the origination of the joy? The usual suspects – something yet to come – weren’t on deck. So what, then?

And the thought occurred, aren’t the percussion of the drums, the power riffs of the guitar, the beer buzz, all combining to put me in that shamanic state of ego-detachment? In other words, wasn’t I for a brief time shutting down the mental chatterbox and simply being – being one with the music, the scenery flashing past my windows?

Which led me to think about all the unhappy souls I know who are teetotalers. Don’t touch the stuff, they say, body being the temple and all that. But damned if they aren’t an uptight, miserable lot. All business and punctuality and focused on the bottom line.

(This is not, by the way, to suggest that drug addicts and alcoholics have the answers. These too are sorry souls, bathed in a kind of chronic pain that they imagine only can be fixed by the medication.)

So perhaps we’re missing out on the ancient arts of dancing madly to a drum beat ’round a fire, lungs burning, pores draining, lost in the body-music syncopation that led others from the maddening voice of the ego.

Isn’t that, after all, what we seek in music, film, alcohol, drugs, sex? Just to turn off the mental volume, if only for a few hours?