Bums

Everyone thinks bums are alcoholics. Truth is, most bums are addicted to cigarettes. I used to be a bum. For a while. But as long as I could get a cigarette any time i needed a cigarette, i found i could endure another slide to another rung down the be-a-bum ladder. A cigarette would make it at least endurable. But without one, it would be madness. It took me a little bit of a while to realize that some part of me had totally misinterpreted my survival needs. And whatever that part was that was fucking up, the mistake it was making was that cigarettes were guaranteeing that I would stay alive and well. This, to say the least, if not diabolical, comes as close to giving at least as good a near-example of it as possible. The culprit, of course, is the limbic portion of the brain. Cigarettes "fool" this otherwise very effective mechanism for survival. Cigarettes are like a computer virus to the limbic system. Cigarettes TARGET the limbic system. The limbic system is the "prime directive" component, to use terms you Trekkies will understand, and I know there are millions of you now reading this, it is the "prime directive" component of the brain. It sends out the order "do such and such or you will die." When cigarettes "contaminate" the wiring of the limbic brain with false information the limbic brain tells you "smoke or die." Of course this is as off the mark as is possible. Smoke AND die would be, if not ALWAYS true, at least a whopping lot CLOSER to the truth than "smoke OR die." That's why 99% of the bums out there will spend their last dollar on a cigarettte, not on a drink. They'd LIKE a drink maybe. But they NEED a cigarette. Cigarette addiction actually creates bums, in a way. Because if your life is falling apart, and you are a cigarette smoker, you will consider each new calamity as being less serious than it really is as long as you can still afford cigarettes. Things could be worse, you will say. "At least I can still get smokes. And as long as I can have smokes, THEY will provide the answer for me somehow. Eventually. Because with cigarettes I can still function. And as long as I can still function, I'll be alright." Trouble is at some point you are functioning at the level of a bum. And the only point that you will reach where you will say "things cannot be worse" is when things are so bad that you can't even get a cigarette. THEN you start "doing something about" the situation. Unfortunately the situation that has motivated you to finally do something about it is the "no-cigarettes" situation. And once that's solved, you're happy again. Happy being a bum. So that you can once again relax and turn off the "motivated to act" switch. Because at least you still have cigarettes, so things will eventually be alright. When you reach this point you are basically being motivated by cigarettes. Cigarettes only. Cigarettes are all you require. Which is SORT OF TRUE. In a fucked-up way, of course. At least fucked up if you ever want to be anything higher than a bum again. This is the real dirty little secret of cigarette addiction: not that it can give you cancer; but that it can turn you into a bum. You heard it here first. And you heard it here only. As is the case with most things on this blog. No, no, don't thank me. You sicken me with your thanks. But, um: ya got a smoke i can borrrow?..... Ok, ok, sorry about the insult. Now...ya gut that cigarette?...Friend?.... (See what happens? - Eventually you have no shame.)