Freedom Anniversary

Just to close a thread from the last blog, this screen adaptation of “In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead” does not include Clete Purcel. And it just struck me that the name ‘Clete’ can be construed, in a high-school American Lit sort of way, as a place our hero Dave can tie himself to so that he doesn’t fall off the world.

Yesterday marked the end of the third year since I’ve had a cigarette. I celebrated with the usual two-mile run/walk through my neighborhood. I’m still packing more than 230 pounds around and last night my left knee area let me know about it. I’m not feeling pain in the joint itself, but I’m feeling a general weakness in that area. So this morning I didn’t run at all, I just walked the two miles. So far today, my knee feels darned okay.

Three years of no cigarettes is an event for me. The hard parts of the whole ongoing effort seem to come in at multiples of three. I was ravenous at three days, vulnerable at three weeks, and very wary at three months, eighteen months, and so on. At this anniversary I just warned myself to be careful and to remember that cigarettes are insidious little bastards that would like nothing better than to sleaze their way back into my life with false promises of ease and enhanced contemplation skills. They’ve done their best to kill me and would leap at the opportunity to continue that slow, measured destruction.

I have learned to separate my cigar experience from my cigarette experience. I can smoke a cigar, not inhale the smoke, and not have another for weeks, even months. It has become a nice, if infrequent, hobby. There is no craving involved. I like that.

But it is still very true that I am a recovering nicotine addict and I always will be. I smoked multiple cigarettes every day for many years. I started inhaling the smoke on the first day of trout season when I was sixteen and didn’t stop, really, until three years ago. That is forty years (do the arithmetic). That is a long, long time. I’m just extremely fortunate that I’m healing well. So far, I have no lung or system issues from my lifetime of smoking. I’ve heard that it takes seven years for all of your cells to replace themselves, so I’m not quite half-way to that blessed milestone. One day at a time. I will continue to count my blessings each and every day. The only real issue I face now is that after I quit, I put on thirty-five pounds and it’s still hanging (literally) around. That’s why I’ve added jogging to my daily routine. Hopefully, it will help me jettison some of this load and my knees will abide more easily.

It’s time to put an egg in my shoe (and beat it). Until next time, so long.

That's Righteous, Brother ...

Went out this evening and walked two miles, mostly in the rain. This was a very good thing. I enjoy walking and my neighborhood is a great mix of flat and hills. I haven’t been walking like I wish I would. This shirkage is probably a function of laziness, but it’s all tied up in my seeming inability to properly manage my time. I like the physicality of walking and I like the results of walking. Since I quit smoking, my wind, even when nonexistent (like tonight), isn’t terribly painful like it used to be. I motored up the steep hill, Broadleaf, and was pretty winded when I got to the top. But if I keep it together and walk again tomorrow, it will be a little better and will keep improving so that I’m barely breathing hard after a couple weeks of it. Without the consistent destruction of smoking cigarettes, gaining a measure of aerobic fitness isn’t really that difficult. It just takes some diligence.

So if all these good things come of walking, why do I get into these periods where I don’t do it? Hmm. An answer might be some kind of depression. I’ve read that a common symptom of depression is the avoidance of things enjoyed. That might have something to do with it. But somehow, for me, not walking regularly is a function of working full time. I haven’t really figured it out yet. I seem to simply forget that I should go out and work up a sweat. Tonight I remembered and am glad of it.
One of the things I love about walking is that it occupies my body so that my imagination can fly out of the ruts that everyday creates. Tonight I got to thinking about righteousness and how addictive it is to feel righteous anger. Oh yeah. We all do it.

But what is being righteous? Is the story of the Christ throwing the moneygrubbers out of the temple righteous? Almost certainly. Is the history of the world coming together to dismantle Adolf Hitler’s outrageous designs righteous? Definitely. Is Pat Robertson saying that New Orleans somehow deserved Katrina righteous? Certainly not. Is anything having to do with this Great American Farce Administration righteous? Emphatically no. Are our military citizens who are dying every week righteous? Now, there’s a sticky question. Any time there are people dying for a cause … and this current conflict has people on all sides giving their full measure … the notion of righteousness becomes almost completely subjective. It depends on which view you assume.

This righteous anger that is leading all manner of humanity to bloody mayhem and death does not seem to have common roots. On one side it is a war of duty and a war of liberation. It is a war to protect the homeland. It is a war to secure a continuous flow of petrochemical goo for some already very rich men. Righteousness doesn’t seem to fit everywhere. On the other side we would be led to believe that it is a holy war and that the god du jour is directing the violence.

Pardon me, but does anybody see a decided lack of righteousness in any of this? But the emotions behind it all and the emotions perpetuating the conflict are more addictive than any opiate, any crystal meth, or any nicotine. People have been addicted to the rush of righteousness since the dawn of human thought.

Personally, I think that the whole notion of finding god, the great separation that the religions of the world would have us close and defend with our lives is simply a longing brought on by the physical act of being born. But that is a can of worms for another day.