Set the Setting: December 2024
Meme Drop, Catch me IRL in Joshua Tree, Set the Setting Playlist: Disco Ball Drops, Resolution: Digital Wellness, Weed for PTSD, RFK Jr.: Best Frenemies?, Photo Drop
Meme Drop
Historically, I’ve loved NYE raves! I have fond memories of the SnowGlobe Festival in Lake Tahoe. After that festival ran its course, I did 4 years in a row at Bill Graham Auditorium: two years of Kaskade and two years of Deadmau5. Most of my rave fam will be at the Anyma show at the Sphere this year, but traveling for a Vegas NYE isn’t in my budget.
Of course, my favorite NYE was 3 years ago, when I was drinking ayahuasca at Kinkara. And then again on New Year’s day and then a third time. During the first weeks of integration, with my critical learning period open, I had the insight and clarity to envision the next 10 years of my life.
So, 3 years later, it’s time to check-in: Am I 30% of my way towards that vision? (I am!). How will I get to 40% by this time next year?
Suffice to say, my desire to party on NYE has been replaced by a more contemplative, introspective, end-of-the-year chill mode. That’ll be the vibe this year — chillin’ with Bauer, thinking about lessons learned and trying to apply them to my life going forward.
Catch me IRL in Joshua Tree (Dec. 13-16)
Remember that special guy I referenced a few months back? You know, my “awesome sexy dude friend?” (That’s his working title at the moment). Well, he continues to surprise and delight me as we’ve gotten to know each other which is why it’s time for our first trip! This long weekend will be a nice dip in the water to see how travel compatible we are.
Plus, I’m SO excited to spend quality time with Eric and Brayton who have just moved to the west coast (about time, guys!). There will be some prancing around the desert, hot tubbing, star gazing, cooking, and s’mores.
And of course, I’m going to take acid and do my annual tradition: I write a letter to myself, from 1 year in the future. In the letter, I celebrate the year that I had - I write it in past tense as though the year already happened. I reflect on the feelings and emotions that drove me, how I carried myself that year, and yeah, a few accomplishments and new habits. But it is not a list of new years resolutions. Rather, it’s a predictive observation about the energy I embodied that helped me respond to uncertainty and clarified my decision making.
It’s a practice in manifestation - and for the most part, it works. Oprah explains it best in her interview with Trevor Noah. He asks her “you’ve interviewed the most successful people in the world, what’s the characteristic that gets them to where they want to go?”
People get to where they want to go because they know where they want to go.
Most people don’t know where they want to go. Most people are being driven by what they think they should do, what other people say they should do, what they have carried in their mind for a long time they should do.
But the most important question you can ever ask yourself is: What. Do. I. Really. Want?
And the answer to that, once you can establish what the answer to that is, and have everything you do, every choice you make, move you in the direction of what you say your vision is.
When you do that, the forces of life rise up to meet you.
My letter “from the end of 2024” congratulated me for making conscious choices to produce more balance in my life (I did!) and also for finishing my remodel (I didn’t!). My 2024 letter opened with “Ahhh what a chill, restorative, and peaceful year that was 😇”
I found success in a few ways this year:
Living with a roommate really reduced Bauer’s separation anxiety, which was a game changer! After 7 years of living alone, I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy having a roommate but I actually love having Mateo in my day to day life. It even altered my remodel plans - I decided I would rather have a 2nd bedroom over a home office.
Spending less money and observing/evolving my relationship with money, consumerism, and capitalism. I made good progress this year towards living a financially sustainable life. At Thanksgiving dinner - my family collectively agreed that we were most grateful… for Costco!
Finding a balanced, healthy, physical/mental/spiritual state of being. Fuck, I learned that lesson this year when Scot passed away. Mental health is everything. It’s not a nice to have, it’s truly life or death. Simplifying my life is a worthy endeavor; and chasing one-off adventures is suddenly less appealing.
Set the Setting Playlist: Disco Ball Drops
As the clock approaches midnight… I want you to remember that there’s this AWESOME Set the Setting Playlist that Steven designed to get you grooving into the new year! My “Disco Ball Drops” playlist is all disco house, nu-disco and French house inspired bops and remixes! I’ve gotten really into nu-disco lately, which is a modern edm genre centered in late 1970s disco, synthesizer-heavy 1980s European dance music, and early 1990s edm.
Hit play on this playlist right at 11pm because it’s 59 minutes long. When the playlist is over, start your count down, and ring in the New Year with uplifting disco vibes!
Resolution: Digital Wellness
I’m excited to have been selected as a facilitator for a Health & Digital Wellness program, January 24 - February 21! This program, over 5 weeks, cultivates a community of folks that want to prioritize their health; by deprioritizing unhealthy digital habits.
If you want to change your relationship with your phone, whether it’s social media, dating apps, the news, email/slack, whatever - this program is for you. Mention my name and you get 25% off the program cost. I’m really excited to partner with Sumayyah, Matt, Valerie (a therapist), and Kelly (a nutrionist) to bring this program to folks looking to start their year with a focus on their holistic health.
Weed for PTSD
When I started working at MAPS in summer of 2021, the state of Michigan awarded us a $12.9m grant, funded by adult-use marijuana retail taxes, to study the efficacy of marijuana in treating the medical conditions of United States armed services veterans and preventing veteran suicide. We were stoked! MAPS has been fighting to end the war on drugs since 1986 - each cannabis reform victory is backed by research to ensure that providers, consumers, and patients can make informed decisions about medical and recreational cannabis use. This grant would fund our Phase 2, DEA and FDA-regulated, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
It’s taken us over 3 years to overcome the ridiculous hurdles put in place by the FDA’s Division of Psychiatric Products. They have written 5 clinical hold letters in an attempt to block the study from happening. Why, you ask? Because of “insufficient information to assess risks to human subjects.” Their claim was that the “high THC” weed (the 20%+ THC weed already being sold in stores) was unsafe, vaping cannabis was unsafe, and that it was unsafe to let trial participants self-titrate (smoke until they hit their own perceived limit). They have blocked us from studying how people actually and already use cannabis.
In case you were wondering, yes, the FDA’s Division of Psychiatric Products is the same people group that rejected Lykos’ New Drug Application for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.
Finally, over 3 years later, after multiple Complete Response Letters and Formal Dispute Resolution Requests… we won. Because we were right. Because we knew it all along; because there was so much scientific evidence. And it was worth fighting for, because if positive results are achieved, a Phase 3 study could support development of a prescribable, inhaled cannabis medication eligible for insurance coverage. MAPS now has clearance to run the first clinical trial that will study cannabis as a PTSD treatment in a way that reflects real-world cannabis use.
RFK Jr.: Best Frenemies?
For 38 years, MAPS has been challenging outdated mindsets at the FDA, which for-profit pharma companies are reluctant to do. We at MAPS know that drug policy reform, like all social justice reform, involves playing the long game; thinking 5, 10, 25 years ahead. Hoping to make change in your generation, but being happy with whatever progress you make, and expecting setbacks along the way.
So, is RFK Jr., as our incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services, going to be our ally, enemy or something in between? It’s too early to say, but I am concerned. Michael Pollan said it eloquently:
Psychedelics should be approved because the science is good, not because they have a fan in the White House
While I whole heartedly agree with RFK Jr’s criticism of the food industry, he has a history of being anti-science, with tragic results
In November 2019, when an epidemic of measles was killing children and babies in Samoa, RFK Jr. wrote a 4 page letter to the prime minister of Samoa suggesting that it was the vaccine that caused the outbreak. Sowing distrust and misinformation in the Measles vaccine led to a 5x increase of deaths until a door-to-door vaccination campaign ended the outbreak.
Who is going to be on RFK’s team at Health and Human Services? Perhaps Andrew Wakefield, who’s “research” linked the Measles vaccine to autism. (The rigged research was retracted in 2010.) Or perhaps we’ll get Sherri Tenpenny, who RFK Jr. declared as “one of the great leaders” of the anti-vaccine movement. She’s the one who claimed that a “metal” in COVID shots was making people magnetic (“they can put a key on their forehead and it sticks!”)
I hope RFK Jr. does some good for the psychedelic movement, but from my point of view, the arc of (psychedelic) justice is long and I worry that psychedelics will get mixed in with the distrust and paranoia evident in his cadre of AIDS denialists.
Buckle up, folks. It’s about to get interesting
Photo Drop
