It kind of makes you wonder why would anyone start, especially with all we know about it. I'm not one of those freaky hippy conspiracy guys who believe that Big Tobacco has been fooling us all these years, like having secret tobacco cops sneaking in our homes and forcing us to light up. People have been smoking a lot longer than any of those companies have been around, anyway. Anyone who can't simply observe that there's a link between chronic hacking cough while smelling like an ashtray, and smoking cigarettes, is an idiot anyway, and the gene pool would just as well be rid of them. I do think that when given the choice between smoking and not smoking, it's a no-brainer.

 

Which is why, I suppose, everyone who smokes is trying to quit, which, again, makes me wonder why did they start. But when you ask anyone why did they start, usually all they'll tell you is when they started, which might explain why they quit, but doesn't answer the question.

 

 

 

 

It's like they don't remember back that far. They do remember their first cigarette, though they don't remember their motivation. This is because most folks start smoking as teenagers and, as we already know, teenagers are all insane.

 

Here's what teenagers are like:

 

You know how on superhero TV shows or movies, say there'll be a guy named Johnny Rocket or something, and he'll just be a regular guy doing regular things and just have normal everyday problems, when he gets blasted by an alien ray gun or finds a magic bean or something, and then he just goes about his daily routine doing his normal things, not knowing that he can now fly or read minds or breathe underwater? And then he just realizes it when he has normal, everyday problems that require him to do these things, like a bully will be jamming Johnny's head in the toilet when he realizes that he can breathe underwater and so he kicks the bully's ass? Or he realizes that he can read the bully's mind and he tells everyone that this guy who thinks he's so cool only has one nut?

 

Well, if you can imagine the exact opposite of this, then that's what a teenager is like. Teenagers think they are going to live forever and have all the time in the world to do whatever they want without preparing or making plans. They also seem to think they're bulletproof and invulnerable to harm, which is why they do dumb ass things like jumping out of moving cars and making backyard wrestling videos. They also think they know everything, or at least as much as they'll ever need to know; everything they don't know is totally useless, and the answers to everyone else's problems are so totally obvious that a three year old can see them. It's like they think there's a giant alien robot in orbit who shoots them with an invisible ray gun when they turn 13, to endow them with infinite knowledge and invulnerability. So while Johnny Rocket goes through life not knowing he has powers when he really does, teenagers go through life thinking they have powers that obviously they really don't have.

 

If you're reading this and wondering if I'm afraid of offending any teenagers who may be reading, let me just say that I am totally not. Because any teenager reading this, I guarantee, is thinking that I'm talking about every other teenager on earth but them.

 

This is probably why teenagers start smoking, insanity characterized by delusion and hallucination, which of course is a completely different thing than stupidity. And I don't mean to say that most teenagers aren't also stupid, because almost everyone is stupid.

 

Now, all of this may seem completely obvious to you, like not to smoke or jump from moving cars, but it's exactly these obvious things that most folks seem to miss.

 

Like my brother got me this new alarm clock. Most folks don't need instructions for alarm clocks, even these new-fangled digital ones. You just plug them in, set the time, and go.

 

This one, though, came with instructions:

 

Now, it also says to follow the instructions, which may seem to be another No-Brainer, except that I believe the clock people left out a very important step, which is to understand the instructions. After all, you can read all you want, but you can never follow them if you don't understand them. It may seem very stupid to instruct someone to understand what they're reading, but far less stupid, I think, than instructing someone to read what they're already reading.

 

Of course these instructions are obvious. Of course they're addressing stupidity. But what strikes me most about these instructions is their timeless wisdom and simplicity.

 

Read.

 

Keep.

 

Follow.

 

How much simpler all our lives would be if we could just read, keep, follow, be, do.....

 

Maybe that's what these instructions are there for, to remind us of simpler things, and to cut away all the unnecessary things that clutter our lives, like worry and despair. Sure, they're just instructions on how to operate a digital clock, but maybe they're meant to be much, much more. Maybe there are other areas of our lives besides digital clock operations to which we can apply these instructions. Maybe there are people speaking to me through these instructions.

 

I play Spider Solitaire on the computer a lot, and it can be really hard. I started on level one, which is just one suit of cards, then level two, which is two suits. Both of them got boring, so I am playing with all four suits now (and as a random note, sometimes I wonder what would happen if I played with Tarot cards, and would folks around me start dropping dead or winning lotteries or randomly falling in love with one another?). Anyway, on this level I've discovered that I can <ctrl-M> and the Game will show me possible moves. The Game will show me possible moves!!! There are people in the Spider Solitaire showing me how to play, how to improve myself, how to become a better player and, by extension, a better person.

 

So I listened to the Game and, if I got stuck, I did what the Game told me. The Game helped me. The Game was my friend. I even wondered if the Game people were the same as the Important Instruction people. But then I noticed that the Game was giving me bad moves. It would tell me to move a card for no reason, or tell me to move a card and then move it right back.

 

I wonder if there are two Game people, one good and one evil. I wonder if one day it will seem very obvious to me.

 

I wonder what I should do about it. And then, it comes to me....read....follow....keep....