A little bit off the wall, but for anyone who hasn't yet woken up to Stephen Fry's weblog, you should:
Imagine that one day someone hit himself lightly on the head with a parsnip. Instead of stopping (for this is a foolish thing to do) he carried on doing it. When he eventually did stop he went about his business but discovered, much to his surprise, that he had a sudden unconquerable urge to hit himself lightly on the head with a parsnip all over again. So he did. And the more he did it, the more he needed to do it. The act of doing it gave him a tiny surge of joy, a little rush of pleasure that had to be elicited, never mind what a twazzock he looked, parsnipping himself on the head all day.Smoking is no less stupid than that. In fact it is a whole bicycle-shed more stupid, because it’s smelly, unsociable, carcinogenic etc etc etc. But the principle is the same: smoking has absolutely no point other than to stop the misery of not smoking
Comments
And once again, M'Lord Fry has hit the nail succinctly on the head.
With a parsnip.
Posted by: tideliar | October 24, 2007 09:29 AM
Oh so true. Having just gone through the pain of giving up I can attest to this. Reminds me of Svevo's Zeno's Conscience.
Posted by: Georg | October 24, 2007 11:37 AM