To my knowledge there is not a single good or beneficial use for the tobacco plant other than to sell it for smoking or chewing or dipping, etc. It is legal. There are many thousands of good uses for the hemp plant, completely aside from smoking marijuana. It is illegal. I don't claim to be an academic authority on logic but it does seems rather obvious that deliberately subjecting your lungs and respiratory system to smoke - of any kind - is illogical. But billions of people do it. Why? Kristofferson included the line, I'd smoked my brain the night before on cigarettes and songs I'd been pickin' in his song Sunday Morning Coming Down. Can you imagine Pat Boone singing that with any credibility at all?
In this interview this month with Brian Lamb, Christopher Hitchens acknowledges that his previous habits of smoking and drinking probably contributed to his current situation of of being in stage 4 esophageal cancer. To his credit, he does NOT say that he wishes he had not done that, or if he had it to do over, he would never touch the stuff. He does say that smoking and drinking often served him well in his writing.
You may notice that A) I have now blogged and B) that it has been several days since I did. This past month all the bills were paid. We had no cigarettes after about the 17th or so. Even went to visit my friend who lives here in LaGrange and managed a little trade of some food for some cigarettes, but it wasn't enough. I hadn't had a puff of a cigarette for about five days. This was a big help to my breathing; I had gotten so I could not lie flat and sleep because of the wheezing. We discovered we had enough money to manage to get a pack, and did. I would take a drag or two off Melinda's. This morning I succumbed and smoked a whole one myself. I'm not physiologically addicted to cigarettes, at least in the same way Melinda is. She actually experiences withdrawal symptoms, like extreme irritability, itching, sometimes shivering and shaking. When I was in hospital a few years back for ten days, the only time I even thought about smoking was when Melinda would come in the room, positively reeking with that disgusting odor from having been downstairs smoking. I was sick.
When I get sick like that I find the smell of both cigarettes and coffee completely disgusting and have zero desire for either. In the past several days I have been a little sick like that again...not enough for doctor or hospital, but enough so I found those things revolting. It always seems during such times that cigarettes are surely gone from my life for good and maybe coffee too. But then...I recover. When I first came outside after having been in the hospital years ago, I rocked back because the whole friggin' world stank so bad it literally took my breath away. Just having been without smokes for a few days this time, we went to town and when we returned home, I was rocked back again at how this place stank inside. Taking a puff or two solved that problem.
I feel like kind of a worm any time we end up asking anyone else for some money for cigarettes. I feel out of sorts when I don't have any smokes. Sure, sometimes I can OD on cigarettes to the point of getting a headache or even feeling nauseous. Sure, I won't argue that there are thousands of chemicals in cigarettes, aside from the nicotine, many of which are proven carcinogens. Sure, being smoke free would not kill me in the way that being without food or water would. Still...there is an aspect of me that is killed...changed, gone, if I have no smokes. I miss that part - a lot. I see no reason to miss that part if it is avoidable. Furthermore, I see no reason to deprive myself of having a drink when I want either. I don't "have a problem" with alcohol. I can have a few drinks and then go weeks or months and never even think of it again. I can sometimes buy a six pack of beer and still have some left months later. I have deliberately avoided having any alcohol in the house for a very long time, even when I could still afford it, so that Melinda would not be subjected to the sight and smell of it. I surely would never want to threaten her years of hard-fought and won sobriety. If you are sensitive to alcohol and you have not had any in a long time, you can smell another person who has been drinking, even if only a beer. Comes from their pores. Likewise, a non smoker is smacked in the face with a horrible odor when a smoker comes into their office, even if it has been hours since that person was around any smoke. It embeds itself into fabrics, hair, etc., and it too emits from the body.
Yeah, shit stinks, shit happens and life sucks, sometimes anyway. Jack LaLanne finally died at 96. He had various TV shows on the air for about 30 years in which he advocated vigorous exercise, etc. He would say that you should get up off the couch, stop watching TV and get outside and exercise. If we had all done that who would have seen his TV shows? People are different. Some people are runners. They LOVE to run. I think that's great. For myself, I think if God had wanted me to walk everywhere, He would not have invented engines. Some people are vegetarians or vegans, some would never smoke anything at all, some would never drink alcohol, etc. I think that's great. I don't want to live that way. It's not who I am. I suppose, technically I COULD live that way...but, why? Many folks have lived to 96 or more without doing very much at all in the way of "exercise and fitness". Some folks who have been at the peak of athletic fitness and never engaged in any "bad habits" have dropped dead in their teens or twenties.
Unlike a lot of people I am fully and completely aware that I will die regardless of what I do or do not do. "Quality of life" can mean very different things to different people. People are different. I don't really like drinking. I sure as hell don't like smoking. Both are quit illogical, as Spock pointed out. Yet some humans have done both since there have been humans. So a decision has been made by my somewhat insufficiently fogged brain...a rather large dose of the metaphorical pill fukital will be ingested...and when cash arrives again...there will be smokes...and a touch o' the rum fer me medicinal needs.
There...I feel better already. Top o' the mornin' to ya!
TRB
No comments:
Post a Comment