I stay there watching the sky. The clouds move and begin forming shapes that look more and more real. At a certain point I feel like I can see a ship from the 1700s. The image becomes more and more detailed. I can even see the crew. I see the captain leaning on the wooden railing, looking toward the horizon. It seems unbelievable, but I can even distinguish the buttons and the lace details on his jacket. Only one other time in my life have I had such a vivid hallucination, when by accident I drank a cocktail of psychedelic mushrooms on an island in Cambodia.

While I enjoy this artistic journey, I start burping, and it feels amazing. I smoke another cigarette, I burp, and the sensation is almost orgasmic. Even taking deep breaths feels pleasurable. I don’t know if this happens to everyone, but it is exactly what is happening to me in that moment.

I feel an enormous sense of happiness. I feel like a god. And this is where the most beautiful part of the story begins. The way I feel makes me reflect. I ask myself why I haven’t been happy in the last few years. What is wrong with my life? I think about many things. I make a mental list and, incredibly, I cannot stop focusing on the positive side of everything that crosses my mind. I don’t like my job. I can change it. I feel lonely. I will find someone special sooner or later. I’m afraid of my future. I’m a capable person, I will find a way to fix my life. These thoughts, and many others, run through my mind and I feel an incredible positivity.

Until the moment I think about the thing that makes me saddest of all: my uncle has cancer, a terrible brain tumor, and it is very likely he will not make it. That thought crushes me. I am terrified that my aunt will be left alone with two small daughters. And I know it may sound strange and easy to say like this, but since I want to see the positive side of things, I focus on one thought: whatever happens, my family is a beautiful family and we are very united. We will never allow my aunt to be alone. All of us are ready to help her and support her.

Unfortunately my uncle’s condition is not something I can control, and as sad as it makes me, for the first time I accept that I cannot control the things that do not depend on me. This, together with many other reflections, somehow gives me a sense of peace. I lie on that beach for hours, thinking.

I don’t even realize that it’s getting late, that I’m cold, that I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for a long time. My friends come to find me and then we go back to the festival to dance. From that moment on, techno music gives me the same emotions I felt during that experience. That’s why today I love it, and I can even enjoy it completely sober.

When a person smokes marijuana or drinks alcohol, their way of thinking changes, you have ideas and thoughts that disappear after a few hours, or at most the next day. But when I took ecstasy, everything I thought, all the positive thoughts I had, never disappeared. Six years have passed since that experience, and I have never been the same person again. I don’t think it was entirely because of that pill, but it was certainly a trigger. Thanks to that experience, I realised that it was possible for me to be happy and positive again.

I want to say clearly that this was my personal experience, and I absolutely do not want to promote the use of drugs. Everyone is different, and every substance reacts differently with each person.

From that day on, I was never the same. The mental state I found myself in allowed me to have other experiences: a few months later, I left alone for an incredible journey through Southeast Asia. But that is another story.

Looking back today, I realise that everything started with a very simple question. When my friends suggested going to that festival in Romania, I thought: Why not? When that morning someone placed a pink pill shaped like a penguin in my hand, once again I thought: why not?

But the real Why not came later, lying on that beach while looking at the sky. In that moment, I asked myself if it was possible to be happy again.

And for the first time in a long time, the answer was the same.

Why not?