Traveling High and Tripping Hard pairs a rock musician’s search for the meaning of life with a trip around the world, providing a memoir replete with humor, adventure, drug-tripping insights, and the highs and lows of a vagabond.
In some ways, Traveling High and Tripping Hard is reminiscent of Kerouac’s On the Road and other stories of counterculture searches for self-discovery and coming of age experiences; but this book’s expanded focus on altered states of consciousness and mind tricks that connect inner self to wider world events incorporates a singular focus that many earlier road trip classics don’t contain: “I had done it. The Jedi mind trick. Somehow, with the power and assistance of the Force, the Buddha, or Shiva, I’d manipulated someone else’s mind into accepting my will. Maybe that sadhu at Pashupatinath had installed some magical powers into my hard drive with that tika, or maybe something had rubbed off from the Tibetan monks at Bhodanath.”
What does swimming with sharks, checking out ruins in Belize, losing direction (and a father) in the Middle East, or facing the apocalypse and drugs in Thailand have in common? All are linked by Joseph Davida’s vigorous romp through life in search of truth, perspective, and trips that don’t conclude with a sense of failure.
Absolutes, pain and suffering, and choices made while living and experiencing life all come to a head in this story of mental and physical tripping that probes the essence of change and its various incarnations.
Readers who would take On the Road to the next level, journeying into mind-bending mental realms changed by drugs and challenging life encounters, will find Traveling High and Tripping Hard a vigorous, revealing memoir that closely examines personal change and larger life goals.
Traveling High and Tripping Hard
Joseph Davida
Dark Planet Press
9780999397503 $10.99
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Diane C. Donovan, Senior Reviewer
Donovan’s Literary Services
www.donovansliteraryservices.com
