Occasionally, because I'm perhaps a bit odd, I like to test out this whole issue by going periods of time without smoking. I also enjoy paying attention to the workings of my mind.

As I type this, I haven't smoked in 48 hours. I'm not sure when the anti-smoking vampire is supposed to bite me and I'm supposed to start lecturing people, but I'll smoke in a little while, so I'm not too worried. This will of course disappoint the Antis looking in who are about to do the twirly dance thinking they're about to gain a recruit. Makes me think of "Night of the Living Dead". Anyway.

Some observations on how this feels. I smoke 1-2 packs a day.

I'm frothing at the mouth! Just kidding. I'm a bit, just a bit scatter brained, kind of the way I feel when I haven't eaten in a while. Then again, I haven't eaten in a while, so that may be the culprit. I do want a cigarette, but I'm not about to break out in some sweat and have myself strapped to bed for this supposed "heroin-like addiction". A new MP3 player I ordered showed up tonight in the mail and I'm more looking forward to checking that out than I am having a smoke.

If I were to tell someone and they were to chirp "That's great! Keep going!" I think I'd punch them in the nose. It would feel a little like being congratulated for not eating meat or drinking coffee for an equivalent period of time.

I would compare the first few hours of not smoking to having your electric go out and finding yourself hitting the light switch despite your knowledge that the lights are off. I don't know how else to say it.

There is a bit of irritability, but it's a secondary feeling. The more accurate word is hyperactivity. Not smoking makes me feel a bit hyper, so all of my emotions seem to have a bit more of an edge on them. Plus, of course, I'm denying myself tobacco's anti-depressant properties.

The overall feeling is definitely a wanting, not a needing. In different circumstances, where the rehearsed mechanisms that I have in place could be knocked out of kilter, it could be worse. I ran into a frustrating traffic jam tonight heading home from work and it didn't throw me off too bad, but the disruption in my schedule did make it a bit harder because you have to look ahead at what you're going to be doing and know that you're not going to be smoking while doing it and just make the internal adjustment.

When people say "most people fail to quit even after several attempts" they're just showing their negative attitude. What most people are actually doing is acquiring the internal discipline they need to quit and they would probably be served well if a bunch of anti-smoking bozos didn't keep painting it as some kind of failure. Then again, anti-smoking doesn't really want anyone to quit smoking. Anti-smoking wants to be anti-smoking and they can't do that without smoking.

Now, I have to admit that I'm being a bit blasse'(sp?) about all of this because I've discovered something in this past year. The hardest part of doing anything is putting your mind in the correct place to do it. Previously, I would have engaged in all kinds of histrionics if I went 4 hours without a cigarette.

Now, this is a discipline and, unfortunately, it is not taught in our education system. We teach this through an indirect method of mastering subjects, and that's not very efficient. Why isn't internal psychological discipline taught? Because the vast body of knowledge regarding this subject is in disciplines that people perceive as being spiritual, mystical or new age. I don't understand why people can't take these methods and extract them from the religious aspect and teach them. I'm not involved in any spiritual pursuits and I use them. For example, what another would call a "mantra" I think of as simply repeating something and using it as a way to focus my mind in a particular direction. I don't sit in any weird positions, close my eyes, and as far as I can tell, meditating is just kind of "zoning out".

Now for all my talk, I haven't mastered any discipline, but I've gotten better at it. There are no rules. You just do what feels comfortable and make it up as you go along.

Back to how I feel (I told you I'm a bit scatter-brained). Physically, I feel good. I worked out for 2 hours at the gym tonight. I didn't notice that I performed better at my workouts, but I did notice a significant difference in my recovery time. However, this may be because I've been working out lately and I'm getting in better shape.

Last, I had a dream last night. I dreamt that I was at the DMV and, in the time lapse effect that dreams can have, I was there for many hours. I was becoming impatient and I was complaining to the people around me and they were unsympathetic. I couldn't understand it because they were waiting too. They would say things like "Stop being so impatient!" and "Stop complaining!" and "Why can't you just wait like the rest of us?" The others didn't seem to mind waiting. The next number came out on the read out over one of the windows and it read "1093". I looked around the waiting area and I found the man holding a large slip of paper with "1093" written on it. The man was Franz Kafka, the writer. He was frightened and didn't want to get up and I noticed that he was crying.

Then I woke up. Today I had an epiphany regarding the meaning of this dream and I'll post on it later.

49 Smokefree hours, now. Off for a smoke.

Winston, your post underscores the point that most of us smoke because we want to, not because we need to. I smoke whenever I can because I like it - but if I have to go without, I can - like during an overseas plane flight, or if the in laws are visiting. Of course I know I can and will smoke again and perhaps thats what gets me through it.

I can and will quit when I want to. I'm retired and can, for the most part, smoke when I please but I recently took a short term job, where smoking is verboten. Some days I'll work 8 hours, some days 4 hours and I haven't killed anyone yet. I will do this for as long as I wish to do it.

Three years ago, my spouse and I took our first long train ride on Amtrak down the California coast. This particular route had no "smoking car" attached. We had to wait for designated "smoke stops".

I found that I could ride (or wait on sidings) for many hours in that train (it was a two day trip) without a cigarette.

Annoying, but not impossible.

We usually just take our car on long trips so I can smoke whenever I want. My spouse quit smoking 6 years ago and never complains about me continuing to do so.

He also voted against the state of Washington initiative regarding banning smoking in "public" places.

I know that there are a lot more non-smokers out there that are more tolerant than the "anti"-smokers...we need to stir them up!

Speaking for myself, there is NO WAY I could go several hours without a cigarette, let alone 48. I recently went about 6 hours, and was nearly ready to pull my hair out. My plane trip, returning from Orlando to Minneapolis, included a stop in Chicago, where we were NOT allowed to get off and have a smoke. We sat in that plane on the ground for nearly an hour. My sister's partner had some nicotine gum. I chewed a piece, which helped a little. I recently saw some news show about "air rage," and in one video, a woman was going berserk because she wanted a cigarette. I was very sympathetic with her feelings. It's unlikely I will ever be able to go overseas until either A) I become a bestselling novelist and purchase a private jet, or, B) a passenger jet is developed that cruises at about Mach III. It's ironic that the airline industry is having financial problems. Bring smoking back, and I bet they would go away!

In a few hours I will be getting on a 747 for LA. From Brisbane that is a 13 hour flight. Not looking forward to it, but I can do it. I refuse to support Big Pharma by using gum or patches or any of that nonsense.

The most annoying part is that they could easily accommodate smokers without the wowsers even smelling it by using proper ventilation.

Oh and the risk of catching some airborne disease is significant - have to run the gauntlet on that one too.

The lack of a smoking section on airplanes has grounded me. The advance of smoking bans has further reduced time outside the house.

The thought of being on a plane, going no where, for 10 hours is cruel and inhuman treatment regardless of smoking.

I can not think of anything that would get me to board an airplane, train, or other public transport.

Tourism is dead in my life. If I want to learn something about another place here on earth or elsewhere, I'll watch PBS.

quote:

Originally posted by John R:
In a few hours I will be getting on a 747 for LA. From Brisbane that is a 13 hour flight. Not looking forward to it, but I can do it. I refuse to support Big Pharma by using gum or patches or any of that nonsense.

The most annoying part is that they could easily accommodate smokers without the wowsers even smelling it by using proper ventilation.

Oh and the risk of catching some airborne disease is significant - have to run the gauntlet on that one too.

Believe me, I didn't WANT to chew the nicotine gum...but I was at my wits' end. Anyway, what is ironic are these two facts: Passengers are now 24 times more likely to catch an airborne virus or bacterial infection than they were when smoking was permitted on planes, because the air exchanges are now far less frequent.
Also, a study that has been ignored (perhaps censored, who knows?) concluded that flight attendants would have to work 40 hours a week for nearly 24 YEARS to "inhale" the equivalent of ONE cigarette on airliners with smoking sections.

I want to make good here on the promise in my previous post.

quote:

Then I woke up. Today I had an epiphany regarding the meaning of this dream and I'll post on it later.

However, in thinking about this post I realized that it was more a realization regarding the writing of Franz Kafka and this board, of course, is not a literature class. So I'll keep this down and dirty.

I don't recommend that you read Kafka's novel "The Trial" unless you are especially interested in such things. I read it in college. I then read it a second time within the same week, but not because I enjoyed it. I didn't get it.

(I wonder if anyone is still reading at this point. Anyway...)

The second time didn't help much either. Nothing much happens in "The Trial". A man called Josef K. is told that he's going to be tried for an offense and he immediately goes about preparing a defense.

Here's the thing: the charge against Josef K. is never mentioned and Josef K. seems oddly unconcerned about what he's been charged with.

Instead, Josef K. spends the novel trying to prepare a defense for an unnamed crime and running up against the wall of an uncaring, indifferent bureaucracy until the end when Josef K. proclaims his innocence for an unknown crime before two men (who are only identified as "two men") kill him.

That's pretty much it.

So, the realization of my dream was:

1) Kafka intended the experience of reading "The Trial" to reflect the feeling of Josef K. In other words, the empty feeling one gets from reading "The Trial" is the same feeling encountered in a world of an indifferent govenrment bureaucracy that has no care for the wants or needs of individual citizens. Kind of like the DMV of my dream.

2)I've had a feeling since this whole anti-smoking thing started that has gone unidentified. That feeling is the feeling one gets when reading "The Trial". As a smoker living in a world where anti-smokers make the rules, I feel like Josef K. in "The Trial". Kafka never mentions the crime in "The Trial" as a way of saying "INSERT CRIME HERE_______". In our world, the crime is smoking, but smoking is just a device, an object, a patsy. The crime may as well be eating mayonnaise: "INSERT CRIME HERE________".

If there are enough crimes, anything can be a crime, so why bother examining it? Just go about preparing your defense for crimes that are indefensible because no crime has been committed. If no crime has been committed, why bother trying to figure out why you're being charged? If you're here, you're presumed guilty.

So, the people in my dream who weren't bothered by waiting were just sheeple oblivious that a condition shouldn't exist because they were so used to it and, after all, it had been set up by authority. The "1093" has no significance that I can think of.

If you've read this far, I think you know why Kafka was crying.

I read a lot, but this book sounds like a nightmare.

By the way, are you now smoking again, or has your 48 hours been extended?

Just wondering?

Most certainly smoking again.

Here's Kafka's novel.

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/ktria11.txt

quote:

Originally posted by WinstonSmith:
Nothing much happens in "The Trial". A man called Josef K. is told that he's going to be tried for an offense and he immediately goes about preparing a defense.

Here's the thing: the charge against Josef K. is never mentioned.

Instead, Josef K. spends the novel trying to prepare a defense for an unnamed crime and running up against the wall of an uncaring, indifferent bureaucracy.
That's pretty much it.



1) Kafka intended the experience of reading "The Trial" to reflect the feeling of Josef K. In other words, the empty feeling one gets from reading "The Trial" is the same feeling encountered in a world of an indifferent govenrment bureaucracy that has no care for the wants or needs of individual citizens. you're here, you're presumed guilty.

That world is already here. In the Federal employment you can be charged with sexual harassment. You are never told what you did or to whom it was done. You are just quilty and do not do it again.

The sad thing is; three such charges of unknown crimes,leveled by unnamed persons, can get you fired and you have no chance to defend yourself.