Last night I dreamed I was eating fire. There I was, just having a cigarette and feeling guilt-free about it. It was lovely. No wailing that it’s been three smoke-free years down the drain, just a quiet contemplation that, hey, I’m finally havin’ it again! And I’m not going to have thirty more!

I am of the school of thought* that says your dreams at night are the waste product of your thoughts from the day**. Or something. And the not-smoking has been in my thoughts several times over the past few weeks. Here, see:

1) I’m currently looking for jobs. (Or, as the Swedish say, jobs.)*** When I am asked in an interview how I cope in times of extreme stress, I say something like, “well I used to smoke—I don’t smoke anymore but I used to—and I know the value of taking five minutes, stepping away, and thinking, ‘how am I going to deal with these next five or seven or thirty tasks so that everything is done correctly and on time?’ The interviewer asks, “how long have you been a non-smoker?” and I answer, “nearly three years.” It gets a positive reaction. And I have reason to believe it gets me an offer. Is this a dirty interview tactic?

2) An article in The Toronto Star on the weekend asked, after an Irish want-ad stated that “smokers need not apply”****, whether smokers are the new deviant class. Now maybe I’m just cynical because I’ve been waiting three years for a cigarette, but people have always smoked and, let’s face it, people will always smoke. And if the time comes that no one smokes anymore, anywhere, ever, then there’ll be cokes all around. Though by then I’m sure caffeine drinkers will be the new deviants. Or fast-food eaters (if they aren’t already).

3) I just finished reading The Hungry Years by William Leith. It’s his memoir on food addiction and obesity, but the most interesting parts are those on consumption (and the addiction thereof) as social phenomenon. In a society devoted to abundance, the options become depressing since we still can’t find what we want. So in order to be satisfied with consuming we must be convinced that we are unhappy with what we already have. Neat. Also he revisits this old adage: if you are trying to kick an addiction, it still owns you if you never return to it. Your thoughts are still paralysed by never having as opposed to always and only having. You have only truly kicked an addiction if you can enjoy and moderate your use of cigarettes, alcohol, etc.

So call me owned. Even a drag and it’s all over.


Notes:
*school of thought: I like this expression. A lot. I feel like I belong at conferences and things when I say it.

**dreams at night are the waste product of your thoughts from the day: Unless they are sexy dreams. Because I do believe there is subconscious influence with those.

*** looking for jobs: Still employed, for the record, and not concerned about blogging the fact since no one at work even knows that I write, and my full name does not appear anywhere here. Google be damned. But thanks for sponsoring Help! Bats! Everywhere!


****“smokers need not apply”: The gentleman posting the ad found that smokers are exempt from any anti-discrimination sanctions imposed by the U.N. or any body in Ireland. Smokers, he explained, are quite simply too stupid to work at his call center. With so many sources for information why smoking is, broadly-put, bad and so many resources available to help a smoker quit, to deliberately continue to smoke is, well, stupid. I disagree, for the record.