Once upon a time…

ok.What to say?I am shocked.But ,I really loved the advertising of those cigarettes,where the nice cow boy was riding in an gorgeous landscape.They know how to manipulate the weak people.

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Decisions, decisions. Choices, choices. Freedom to choose? What do I tolerate?

I had a friend that I hadn’t seen in many years. One day she was on my mind. Over the next couple of months I would think of her. I would also think of her son, who was born two weeks before my son. I even got out some old photos of the boy’s as babies. They were so beautiful. Fat chubby cheeks, double chins, chubby arms and legs. Wide innocent eyes. Luminescent smiles.

Eventually within a few months of these reminiscence I went to the grocery store, and there she was, a dear old friend. I was so excited to see her. One of the very first questions out of my mouth was, ‘how is Ben’.

She burst into tears.

‘Ben died Sue’.

Ben had become a drug addict. Like many he had started using small drugs, marijuana known as a gateway drugs. He was only a young teenager. He did not have the capacity to make true free choices. That is a scientific fact, no religion, nor philosophy can dispute. From there his problem snow balled.

When he entered a rehabilitation center they put him on the 26th floor of their center to begin the detoxification process. They did not bar the windows as a precaution against the known side effects of the process of withdrawal, nor did they monitor Ben. Ben jumped out the window. He was 26-27 years old.

Did the authorities/professionals have a responsibility to provide for Ben’s safety, knowing the severity of psychological trauma a patient endures during the detox process? Did they have the right to choose to not ensure the safety of Ben? Did they have the right to take the money and run? No birth control? Should this be tolerated?

Even as I write, I burst into tears. My hands shake, my heart hurts as it remembers. Debbie and I are like the porcupines I guess. The quills of our life story written together, each wounded.

I guess it could be said that I tolerate my friends wound in that I allow myself to feel both her pain and mine, not because she deserves it, nor I, nor Ben, but because I am human. I have been given the gift of feeling compassionate so that I can do something compassionate. And I share the experience so that I might discern what is tolerance, freedom of choice, compassion and charity, and remember.

Without knowledge there is no freedom of choice. Someday’s I hate being human. It is hard and it can be painful. But when all is said and done I am also grateful.

What about child pornography on the internet, and all the other violence’s against mankind? Freedom of choice? Tolerance?

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my father used to smoke till 94 2 weeks b4 he was gone he stoped (he was in the hospital) there r a few cases that smoking doesnt affect one,,,, and many cases of non smokers…. who become sick….without smoking!
so time is changed and knowledge is different,,, and most of the time the smoking has mmmmany side effects,,, so lets not burn papers while smoking,,,,,lets quit ( i am not smoking anyways).

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I’m going smoking now! Wish I had a camel! Lol, we will be writing about our dear “nephew” again soon in relation to smoking, so Thelma and whoever else, if you are interested drop back to the site next week..

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCFXGanTx4A
Melina Merkoury… smoking and dancing!
LOVE,
Thelma

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As a young doctor, I understand why my colleages smoke. It’s a way of coping with stress in every day medicine.However, my colleage in the video doesn’t seem stressed at all! Whereas one of my professors, being an oncologist, used to smoke only when his patients couldn’t see him… I couldn’t imagine that advertisers would use medicine to promote cigarettes!!!! It just doesn’t fit!!!!

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Paul from Austria: I was starting to post it myself just a bit ago… the thought, that we should AT LEAST have the choice to choose whatever we want.

We can have people advising us things, out of good thought, or objectively (the best kind of advices). We can have people telling us how to do. We can be persuaded to do something.

But in the end we have to think – what do I want and need myself? What do I need to feel good? If You need something, go for it. It’s Your life. Just make sure, You aint hurting anyone around You doing so.

We can listen to what others say to us, and accept and honour their opinon, but in the end we decide ourselves.

Love,
L.L.

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Savita Vega,

Thank you very much ! :)

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Just as Santosh, above, I recently (just in the pst few weeks) started smoking again, after having stopped for ten years! I’m still experimenting with different brands, to find what I like best and, admittedly (likely to the delight of those in the field of marketing) the one that “fits” my self-image best. Most people in these parts smoke Marlboro: men, the classic “Cowboy” Marlboro Reds; the women, Marlboro Lights. This doesn’t fit me, so yesterday I had a very nice puff on a Djarum Black (clove-flavored). It was sweet, delicious in fact, but it was sooooo decadent! Smoking a pack of those a day, which I am tempted to do, would be like eating a whole box of Godiva chocolates all in one sitting – sinful! Still, this may be my brand of choice before it is over. I like the sleek, black simplicity of the cigarettes themselves, the way they crackles when you puff on them, the way the smoke rises in a distinct and cohesive stream, creating little swirls in the air. The silver papers inside, protecting the cigarettes and keeping them fresh, are reminiscent of the fabric of a dress I might imagine wearing out at night. I especially like the logo at the top of the modernish, almost minimalist, black box: the nib of a fountain pen, inside of a silver circle: Maybe these are the writers’ cigarettes. I’m not a “Marlboro Man” (or woman) – born in cowboy country, but not a cowgirl at heart – but maybe, just maybe, I am a Djarum Black type.

So why did I start smoking again? 1. (The medical version:) Because I am addicted to cigarettes, and always will be. No matter for how long I quit, when I am around people who smoke a lot, I am always in danger of a relapse. Just like an alcoholic who decides one day to start hanging out in bars, if I start socializing with people who smoke, as I have done lately, I am bound to fall. 2. (The conscious decision:) Because I want to get some writing done. I am bi-polar, and often suffer from acute mania – that more than depression (the other extreme). In December, I decided to renounce the prescription drugs that keep my condition in check, and go it on my own. This, of course, immediately sparked a manic phase, which renders it almost impossible, physically, for me to sit still for more than a minute or two at a time. Even with a tiny lap-top, it is not feasible to write when scurrying to and fro like a mouse loosed from its cage. I have to sit! The cigarettes help me to do this. Night before last, I stayed up until four in the morning, at my computer the whole time, since ten p.m., writing. This, I haven’t been able to do in years. Not even on the prescription meds, as all they did is make me like a vegetable, lethargic and wholly unambitious.

Of course, at the end of that night, the ashtray beside my computer was filled with cigarette butts, and I look at them and I think, “How many years off of my life will this take?” Both my grandfather and my mother died of smoking cigarettes – both developed emphysema and spent the last few years of their lives gasping for breath. I watched this and I thought, “I never want to be like that – God, just don’t let me die like that!” Maybe I will,maybe I won’t. They say it is partly hereditary. Some people smoke all their lives and live to a ripe old age, to die of something completely unrelated to cigarettes. Others, like my mother, suffer a horrible death at an early age.

So, the odds may not be in my favor, but as much as I don’t want to die that way, I want to live! Really live! Being on antidepressants and mood-stabilizers is NOT life. When I got of the medications, I told myself that I would not simply let my illness run rampant like wildfire, wrecking my life – I would instead, do everything in my power to control it, including doing research into possible modes of “self-medicating.” A glass of nice red wine at night – to calm my frazzled nerves and lull me off to sleep – that’s one, and I don’t think there’s any harm in it at all. On the contrary, it’s probably quite medically beneficial to my health, so long as I limit it to that one glass. Taurine and Inositol supplements, as well as other vitamins, is another. That, so far, seems to be working quite well, and as far as can tell, is just as effective as the prescription medications, without all the side effects. Then, thirdly, are the cigarettes. I think of them as my little chain I use to tie myself to my computer when I want to get some writing done. They work equally as well for any activity that requires me to put my backside in a chair and leave it there for more than a minute or two. i think they also help me, mentally, to focus to the exclusion of all other thoughts and concerns. And, in the end, they may well kill me, but at least I will have lived my life alive, right up until the very end. At least I won’t just sit, like a vegetable, comfortably numb, as I was on my bi-polar meds – dead, though still alive.

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It’s a good thing we have more information about smoking then, eh?

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Haha… ok this is very funny.
1. The name of the cigarettes is a spieces of an animal: camels. It generally will make You associate with things: ok, it’s natural, it’s a living creature, oh, it’s something wise (as camels are thought to have great memory and very able to learn, especially learn the laws of desert), so it must be good.

2. The doctors are smoking it – and the doctors have often better health than a general human being – this will make You think – “Maybe I should start smoking!” hehe…

3. Using the word ‘all’ alot, … ehh…

Ok, whatever associations and words tried to use and how this is presented, I am glad to say, I still won’t ever start smoking. This is just my point of view.

Although it is a nice commercial, and it gets me somehow in a good mood. But still not affecting me on a level to make me smoke. Hehe…

Love,
L.L.

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Dear Paulo,

With due respect, I do not know if smoke is bad or good but I certainly know how smoke is realted with my life.

After smoking 16 years in my life, I quit smoking for 4 years, Now-I started again smoking, I think I will never quit it again.

Anyways, I am putting one poem from my recently released book, “A Very First Book of Poems: Hearbreak”.

It would be great help if you can give one line quote or praise for the book, I promise to put it in the front cover of the book. (Even if you do not respond, I understand you might be “busy” as many great famous authors are…)

**************************************************
Pleasure of Smoke
**************************************************
Life is a smoke, starts with lit
Definitions are many, sorry but it will end.
Pleasure of smoke with every intake,
Outtake shows, I am full of energy.

Mind is uncontrollable thoughts,
Keeps on coming, emotions breaks
Killing them with every intake
Pleasure it is to smoke

Every new single smoke, is new moment
Defining all those thoughts
Getting ready to be killed or erased.
Quit smoking have all those who have said.

Have they ever enjoyed the pleasure?
Of killing thoughts when it shakes.
Heart breaks, tears collides
A memory remains inside
This tiny little brain

Lit this wonderful smoke
Life starts with start of smoke
Ends when all your thoughts are erased
********************************************

You can find the book at following place
http://www.kalwar.com.np/
http://www.lulu.com/content/6179996

Dear Readers and Friends,

I would appreciate if you could also read the content and give praise for the book, the best praise, I promise to, publish it on the book together with your names and affliations such as Author, Reader, Blogger etc..

Here is my link describing myself, “I used to smoke”.
http://www.kalwar.com.np/2008/03/i-used-to-smoke.html

Good day, Everyone ! :)

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