Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Life as a Smoker



Everyone knows that "smoking is bad for you". You know that if you start smoking that 1/3 of you will eventually die from it. And for the most part, that's about all you know. Is this enough reason to not smoke? No, it's not, and here's why.

Teenagers are immortal. Teenagers live forever. At least that's the way it seemed when I was a teenager. People's perception of time is logarithmic and when your 18 a "half lifetime" is 9 years. Your parents are 2-3 half lifetimes older than you and your grandparents are 4-6 half lifetimes older than you and in your mind that is like eternity and beyond the scope of your imagination. Thus, in your mind, the health effect form smoking are so far off in the future that it's beyond the limits of your imagination. Besides, surely by then they will cure cancer, right?

People of my generation (I'm 43) have a half lifetime of 21 years. We are looking at best at one more half lifetime of having good sex and then a half lifetime of growing old and dying. We are past the age where it is obvious that smoking is a bad idea. For those of you who don't know it, if you don't smoke before you're 20 you won't start. By the time you get to 25 you have developed the mental skills to be able to resist the social pressures to start. That's my theory at least. But the facts are that people over 20 don't start smoking. Smokers come from teen smokers who can't quit.

However, there are a lot of other reasons to not smoke other than taking a chance with cancer and heart attacks. These reasons are actually a lot stronger and affect you a lot sooner and affect all smokers. And I want to talk with you now about these reasons to lay a logical foundation as to why you don't want to be a Nicobrain.

post by, Lai

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