I'm pulling out my soapbox for all you brainwashed robots.
Okay, I promise this will be my last rant before I abandon livejournal for another few months or so. This is just really bothering me. I've had so many people preach to me about this; I've had people claim that they couldn't be my "FRIEND" anymore because of this. First of all, my body = my business. Second of all, you're all incorrect idiots. =P
Let's get a few things straight: I am not addicted to nicotine in the least bit, and I certainly do not smoke often enough to become addicted. I've never had a craving for tobacco, and I've never needed a "fix" of anything. I understand that it is irritating, uncomfortable, and unhealthy to be around smoking when you don't, and that's why I have NEVER smoked around you guys. I smoke a)with other people who are doing the same or b)when I am alone and needing to relax/focus. Tell me one single way how this could offend you.
Think back: You're six years old. You're with your parents in some fast food place, shoving french fries down your throat. You look outside and there's a guy standing on the curb, smoking. "What's that?" you ask your folks, chunks of fried potatos spewing out of your mouth. Your parents look at each other knowingly. Then, they look at you. With the next few words that come out of their mouths, you are programmed for the rest of your life to judge anyone you see with a cigarette, cigar, or pipe as an unbathed Burger King employee or a retired crack whore or an unsupervised irresponsible teenager who steals things without remorse.
Thoughts:
1. Take a man of perfect health, and have him smoke one single cigarette. What will happen to this man? He will probably cough a bit. He will have bad breath for a while, and until he takes a shower, he'll smell like smoke. Sounds absolutely horrible, right? Wrong. Take that same man, and feed him those Burger King french fries with a nice (calorie and saturated fat filled) double cheeseburger and a "mega-sized" soda. Or stick him in a tanning bed for an hour. I promise you, he won't be better off than he was with that cigarette.
2. Mark Twain, Ayn Rand, Anthony Burgess, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut, Monet, van Gogh, Einstein, Bill Clinton, JFK, Audrey Hepburn, Conor Oberst, Bob Dylan, John Lennon...what do these people have in common besides their brilliance, incredible accomplishments, and the fact that each of them is a hero of mine? They have all been known to take a drag occasionally (some on more occasions than others). I'm not trying to claim that anything is "okay" or "not okay" based on who does it, rather, I am giving examples of the inconsistency and worthlessness of stereotyping.
" I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the 'fatal' practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you are always figuring out how many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the question.
You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking." -Mark Twain
"I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression." -Ayn Rand
All of that is to say in my defense, and in the defense of others who you may place judgement on. It is NOT in defense of the tobacco industry, nor is it meant to encourage the vulgar, disgustingly unhealthy habit of abusing tobacco. As I've said, I am not and do not smoke enough to become addicted to the substance, and I would not wish for anyone to be. I also would not wish anyone to be addicted to food or alchohol or the tanning bed. Cancer is real. It's everywhere, and it's scary as hell. For that reason alone, substance abuses of any kind are just too dangerous not to be out of the question.
Let's get a few things straight: I am not addicted to nicotine in the least bit, and I certainly do not smoke often enough to become addicted. I've never had a craving for tobacco, and I've never needed a "fix" of anything. I understand that it is irritating, uncomfortable, and unhealthy to be around smoking when you don't, and that's why I have NEVER smoked around you guys. I smoke a)with other people who are doing the same or b)when I am alone and needing to relax/focus. Tell me one single way how this could offend you.
Think back: You're six years old. You're with your parents in some fast food place, shoving french fries down your throat. You look outside and there's a guy standing on the curb, smoking. "What's that?" you ask your folks, chunks of fried potatos spewing out of your mouth. Your parents look at each other knowingly. Then, they look at you. With the next few words that come out of their mouths, you are programmed for the rest of your life to judge anyone you see with a cigarette, cigar, or pipe as an unbathed Burger King employee or a retired crack whore or an unsupervised irresponsible teenager who steals things without remorse.
Thoughts:
1. Take a man of perfect health, and have him smoke one single cigarette. What will happen to this man? He will probably cough a bit. He will have bad breath for a while, and until he takes a shower, he'll smell like smoke. Sounds absolutely horrible, right? Wrong. Take that same man, and feed him those Burger King french fries with a nice (calorie and saturated fat filled) double cheeseburger and a "mega-sized" soda. Or stick him in a tanning bed for an hour. I promise you, he won't be better off than he was with that cigarette.
2. Mark Twain, Ayn Rand, Anthony Burgess, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut, Monet, van Gogh, Einstein, Bill Clinton, JFK, Audrey Hepburn, Conor Oberst, Bob Dylan, John Lennon...what do these people have in common besides their brilliance, incredible accomplishments, and the fact that each of them is a hero of mine? They have all been known to take a drag occasionally (some on more occasions than others). I'm not trying to claim that anything is "okay" or "not okay" based on who does it, rather, I am giving examples of the inconsistency and worthlessness of stereotyping.
" I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the 'fatal' practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you are always figuring out how many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the question.
You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking." -Mark Twain
"I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression." -Ayn Rand
All of that is to say in my defense, and in the defense of others who you may place judgement on. It is NOT in defense of the tobacco industry, nor is it meant to encourage the vulgar, disgustingly unhealthy habit of abusing tobacco. As I've said, I am not and do not smoke enough to become addicted to the substance, and I would not wish for anyone to be. I also would not wish anyone to be addicted to food or alchohol or the tanning bed. Cancer is real. It's everywhere, and it's scary as hell. For that reason alone, substance abuses of any kind are just too dangerous not to be out of the question.