Lazy Fatalism: You will die slowly, even if you quit smoking
Saturday, November 8th, 2008
I have attempted and failed to quit smoking many times.
Each time I am comforted by my friends and familiy as I reach for that cigarette and start sucking it like a pacifier.
“It’s ok honey,” they purr as they stroke my back.
“You’re obviously not ready yet,”
“The time will come when you are ready, and then you will just quit,” they advise me to be reasonable, not to beat myself up too much, that I should just wait for the time when I really want to quit smoking.
This time just didn’t happen to be that time.
So I kept waiting for the right time. The magic moment. The moment when I didn’t want to smoke anymore.
But it was all utter bullshit. I never really wanted to smoke. I just did. It is like a whole list of life habits that I keep up. I never really wanted that job. But I got it. So it’s my job now. I just smoke.
Can’t get off your arse to change the channel, or god forbid turn off the TV, because you are convinced that it is all a load of crap anyway? I call it lazy fatalism. Things will just happen one way or the other so why bother exerting yourself. You could get out of breath. Out of puff. Just sit still. The world will keep spinning without you flailing your arms about.
So I am dying slowly, and it isn’t because my lungs are clogged up and I wheeze myself to sleep. I am dying slowly because I have resigned myself to the fact that the world will keep spinning without me. If I’m not going to try to do things differently I am just going to die slowly. If I don’t start swimming against the current then I should just let myself drown now. I don’t want to end up at the end of the river in a heap of other bodies that just couldn’t be bothered to do things differently. Imagine the end of time conversation. To suffer the utter boredom of a piled heap of lazy fatalists.
So this morning I inhaled and I could feel bits of ash bouncing around in my lungs and I could imagine all these black paper bodies. The bodies of lazy fatalists bouncing around with each breath. And I could hear them. “Dumm dumm dumm der dumm dumm.” I don’t want to listen to their inane nods of agreement, or “why bother”, “why not”.
I have to start making decisions. Choose my own fate. And I am going to start today by not having a cigarette.
[Photo by Aaron Escobar]