Up in Smoke
310
Everything’s a dying habit, with the epidemic of newfangled gadgets.
Likey evolve an extra limb, for our multiple uncontrollable whims.
Shocking to discover, those you admire having their own addictions.
For carefree youth and those who’ve nothing left to lose.
Smoke. Signals. Modern and old. Too many ‘facts’ being told.
Purported to be good for us - what suckers we were.
Before hybrid working; the best way to take a breather.
La dolce vita, where everything’s more chic when you’re Italian.
If you’ve never, you can’t understand the overwhelming, enveloping pleasure.
All the anxiety and consternation, relieved for the smoke’s duration.
Sorrento, Italy, 2023.
Bristol, 2023
Mayfair, London, 2023
Oxford Street, London, 2023
Oxford Street, London, 2018
Oxford Street, London, 2022
Cheapside, London, 2023
Sorrento, Italy, 2023
Spitalfields, London, 2023
Oxford Street, London, 2021
All shot on the Nikon d750
It was Mark Twain who said giving up smoking is easy - he'd done it thousands of times. Mr Hood is spot on. I'm gradually expanding right now, too, as my habit was binned in the summer, the day I was sent for a CT scan of my lungs.
It's not smoking that draws me to the post. It's "nothing to lose". Last weekend but one, I was in conversation with an expert - Dutch no less - on the Scott South Pole expedition. I had cited the example of Lawrence Oates in a post called https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/i-am-just-going-outside-and-may-be (some time), and, during Covid, I had cited the example of Stanley Williams and Ray Washington who, if you didn't know, founded the gang known as Crips.
What impelled Oates was, I'd thought, the fact he had nothing to lose, and could offer his comrades a chance of survival by sacrificing his life heroically. My Dutch friend opined that that was possible; but what was also possible was that he couldn't stand Robert Falcon Scott, and went out into the blizzard to be spared the man's self-righteous idiocy.
What makes Crips Crips is their 25-year life-expectancy. What made Napoleon Napoleon was his eternal life-expectancy. Crips have nothing to lose; Napoleon had a battle to lose, but he didn't lose eternity.
People underestimate what they have to lose and yet, whilst we fear death like the devil, we tend not to fear the devil, and claim a place in Heaven for all those who depart before us, here in our Garden of Earthly Delights, as if Heaven was our only yearning on Earth. If we can appreciate our our own paradoxes for what they are, and embrace them, we can understand the universe.
Quitting is easy. Done it hundreds of times. 5 years and counting since the last time. And about 10kilos I didn’t have as a smoker. Don’t miss the cough though. Great post!