Effective Advertising?

I realized today that I am messed up.

I wanted to start smoking cigarettes. That's right, not I wanted to smoke a cigarette, I wanted to start smoking cigarettes. I actually wanted to become addicted to something that would kill me. But that's not the thing that got to me, it was the reason that I wanted to start. Not because I would look cool (and don't deny it, some people simply do look cooler when they're smoking), not from peer pressure, nothing like that. I wanted to get addicted to smoking, just so I could quit.

Yeah, I'm that fucked up.

Obviously this got me thinking about myself. Why did I want to start smoking just so I could quit? Well, I know I like knowledge, so it didn't take me long to figure out that I just wanted to go through the experience of quitting. That might have been good enough for some people, but no, not me. We are constantly bombarded with PSAs and ads telling us that quitting smoking is one of the hardest, experiences you can go through, and is very, very far from fun. So why the flaming fuck would I want to go through such a hard, horrible experience? It had me stumped for a while, but I think I finally came up with an answer: Because it earns respect, and I think subconsciously I want that respect. Talk about subliminal advertising, even if it is unintended.

Think about it. If you quit smoking (as long as you don't become a pretentious snob about it) you earn a certain respect that not many other people have. If someone says, "Yeah, I smoked for 10 years, but I quit and haven't touched one in eighteen months!" How do people respond? "Oh, wow, congratulations! that must have been tough!". Sure it would encourage people who already smoke to quit, but what else does it say? Maybe instead of congratulating them we should be saying something along the lines of, "What? You smoked? That is disgusting. You damn well better have quit."

The problem about this is that I thought that if I figured out what was making me want to do it, the urge would go away, and sure, I could say it has, but since this is my journal, I'm not going to lie to myself or anyone reading this. It hasn't. And that is starting to scare me.

I thought I was going to be able to resist the advertisements, resist the pressure, and avoid smoking all together, but now I'm not so sure. What if I can't quit? I know for a fact that quitting is one of the hardest things to do in life. Unfortunately for me, not only do I like knowledge, I like challenges too. Fuck me.

So now it seems to be a battle between two different parts of my brain. The part that is going, "Hey, come on! It will be an adventure!" And the part that it going, "No it won't. It will kill you, you dumb fuck." The classic devil and angle scenario.

So basically what I am saying is this: If I do start smoking (which I hope I don't) and die from it (which I really hope I don't), know that I knew the risks going in and will come back from the grave to punch any fucker who feels bad for me in the teeth.

On a completely unrelated side note, I've noticed how all travelers from the US seem to say how friendly the culture is, no matter where they are visiting. So my thought to you is this. Perhaps it's not the other cultures that are friendly, maybe it's your culture that is unfriendly.

(Though it sounds like it, I have no real personal connection with this. Just pondering.)

Wolf out.