For 30 days, Zeus Tipado (a.k.a. the Stoned Gamer) consumed nothing but the meal-replacement drink Soylent and dabs provided by Vader Extracts, Dank Tank, and Caviar Gold. He survived Week 1 and Week 2 of his “moronic and unscientific” experiment, but the first 14 days, in which the only flavors he tasted came from the terpenes in cannabis extracts and a buttery foulness from the drink, took him to some strange, introspective, OCD places. He documented it all on this site and by using the Toke With app.
Week 3? Well, it only got weirder for Zeus. Read on to experience his highs and increasingly extreme lows. While they are incredibly interesting and entertaining, Zeus and MERRY JANE urge you again—DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.
Day 15
Nietzsche died over a century ago, but he still scares the shit out of every college philosophy students with his “eternal recurrence” interpretation (or “amor fati,” for all you existential sticklers). In short, it’s a theory that the universe has been reoccuring in exactly the same way for infinity. What you’re doing now, you’ve done before—in fact, you’ve been doing it for eternity. You can’t escape it. You’re trapped. This Soylent-and-dab solitude is the prison I’ve created for myself. Nothing advances, everything is stagnant.
Every day is a struggle to never leave my room. I just can’t bare to be in the “real world” in fear that I would have to explain just what the hell I’m doing with a bottle of chemicals in my hand.
“What is a Soylent?”
“What’s inside?”
“Why are you drinking it?”
“What’s a dab?”
Each answer I give opens a potpourri of questions that I have to answer. It’s exhausting, and even more so when the only thing that’s sustaining my life force is space liquid.
Day 16
It’s 3:24 p.m. and I haven’t left my bed. My entire daily nutrition of five bottles of Soylent are perfectly aligned—thank you, OCD—on the floor within arm’s reach. A one-gallon bottle of Crystal Geyser spring water is nestled under my sheets like a Christmas nativity scene.
I keep telling myself that I’ve surpassed the halfway point of this experiment and it’s all downhill from here. On paper those words are extraordinarily encouraging, but in the present, it only means that I have two full weeks left of this nonsense. I don’t have the energy to leave my bed today. Besides, these sheets are entirely too warm.
Day 17
“Buttery nothingness.”
I’m sure there’s a more eloquent way to describe the flavor, or non-flavor, of this Soylent stuff. The only real enjoyment I get throughout the day is planning and fantasizing my first true meal after this experiment. I need something that was grown on this Earth inside my body. Perhaps scientists haven’t discovered it, but the soul needs more than just a laboratory concoction that meets a standard level of daily nutrition. I’m absolutely convinced all humans have an intangible connection with this planet that is met (in some part) by consuming plant-based foods. All I can think about is biting into a head of savoy cabbage and the subsequent crunch it will make as my teeth smash into its leafy flesh. Cabbage. All I need is cabbage.
Day 18
Regardless of the limited amount of energy and motivation that’s lingering in my body, today marks the 15th Stoned Gamer Qualifying Tournament of the season, a Boss Battle that will be held at Compassesh in Van Nuys, Calif. Most of you read my passionate breakdown of the Stoned Gamer Tournament last week on Day 11, so I’m not going to delve too much in explaining the cultural phenomena that has gripped the cannabis and eSports scene by storm. However, what separates a Boss Battle from other Stoned Gamer Tournaments is, instead of a bracketed tournament in which players compete for a top spot, a previously qualified Stoned Gamer stays on the arcade for 90 minutes and takes on all challengers. If a person can defeat the boss, they advance to the year-ending Stoned Gamer Grand Finale Tournament. You can see the full results, along with every other Stoned Gamer Tournament, on the Stoned Gamer site.
This is the second tournament I’ve held while under the spell of Soylent, and the adrenaline from being on stage and flipping out at the gaming action is a surefire way to get my mind off my rudimentary dietary situation. Toward the end of the night, I found myself with a surplus of two unopened Soylents—an unexpected treat after winding down from a successful Stoned Gamer Tournament.
Day 19
Every word ever uttered in the English language is constructed of only 26 letters—and those letters are simply not enough to describe how completely drained I am from last night’s tournament. Complete energy depletion. It feels like there’s no coming back from this.
All of this is a really bad idea. No one should do this.
My thoughts are at a basic level, so even writing this is incredibly difficult. Physical exertion has a direct correlation to mental fatigue. The mind-body connection is real. I feel like at the end of this experiment, I will have arrived at a conclusion-less conclusion that will unintentionally take me to the very beginning. (Note: At the time of writing this, that statement had a powerful significance. Upon retrospect, it reads as incoherent babble.)
Day 20
Ten more days until I can actually eat food. Someone on the Toke With broadcast asked how I’m still alive, a question that is always met with, “Well, what if I’m dead?” What if all of this is a hallucinatory response to my own demise and I died a long time ago? This has been in the back of my mind ever since I had an extremely intense trip on Hawaiian Baby Woodrose when I lived in the UK back in 2006.
It’s a pretty extreme thought usually reserved for those who are deep within psychedelic trips, but even the most outlandish theories are fully entertained under this Soylent-and-dab mind frame I find myself in.
Day 21
Nine days left and I can’t fathom how I’m going to get through this. Terence McKenna once said the light only reveals the darkness around it. That’s where I find myself—I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but in the process it’s just illuminating the sheer darkness that’s around me.
Super High Score director Cynthia Vance (@cynthiavancejp) stopped by because she was genuinely concerned about my dwindling mental state, and my god am I happy to be in her presence. She has such a calming aura about her, like her soul is always whispering to me. I’m very fortunate to call her a friend.
After kicking it with her, she redirected my focus to not surviving the next nine days, but rather thriving within them. Grabbing those remaining days and dominating every last one. There’s only one way out of this, and it’s through a triumphant blaze to the finish line. On to the final stretch. There’s nothing on this planet that will stop me from raising my hand in victory at the end.
