- cross-posted to:
- health
- cross-posted to:
- health
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While i dont doubt it, i had an observation about this fact a long time ago.
I was on a blind date years ago, and was a pack a day smoker. We eat dinner, have dessert and coffee, and stepping outside, i light up a smoke.
“You know those things are bad for you, right?”
“I know, its a terrible habit”
" do you ever wish you had never picked up the first one? It will kill you eventually…"
I took a drag. Held it, and exhaled.
“No. No i dont think i regret it at all”
She tilted her head like a puppy does when you whistle a high pitch with no prompt. It was confusion. She didnt understand. I stomped out my cigarette. We started walking.
“If i think about it, the chance encounters ive had on a balcony, or outside a random doorway with a stranger. conversation with no precontext or preconceptions. Just two people enjoying a thing that will eventually kill them. Theres something beautiful about that”
She still didnt get it.
"Those moments, and the friendships that resulted. They have already saved my life. Times over probably. So a few hours, or days at the end, in comparison to the things that i built off of those little moments, in the moment, where its just people and their habit…
I dont think i would change it"
The date went nowhere. There wasnt really a spark to begin with. It wasnt a big deal. Never saw her again.
But the friend that set her up with me, the one who i met by chance smoking in a backyard at a party. Shes still my friend. We talk once a week, if not more.
Her and her wife are expecting their first child this spring. I was at her dads funeral this fall. Lung cancer. He will never meet his grandson.
Neither of us smoke now. But, despite it all. I do not regret starting with that first smoke. Without that friendship, i would never have made it this far.
But in acknowledging that fact, there is a cost.
Theres always a a cost. But i value the time i traded, and i personally, have no regrets.
That’s beautiful. When I was a teenager my friends picked up smoking. My mom had cancer so I didn’t, but I did pick up stepping outside and having a chat with strangers. And yeah it’s been a wonderful habit to have. That and a willingness to say yes to adventure have led to an interesting life.
I really appreciate the way you articulated a feeling I’ve never been able to properly express! Thank you and wish you a happy and healthy future!
Grandmothers on both sides were 1pack/day.
One died early 60’s from smoking, other is into her 90s still getting around on her own.
Imagine, if she hadn’t started smoking, at, say, twenty, your 90 year old grandma could be 110 by now.
Never thought of it that way.
I might be getting whooshed, but she’d be the same age “by now” unless there was some interstellar-type time travel going on. (Not trying to be a jerk, and your point still stands, just getting a small chuckle about the idea that someone not smoking would have aged an extra 20 years in the same amount of time).
Imagine if she not only never smoked, but ate well and meditated too, she’d be at least 185 today.
This is what angers me about stories like this…
Population statistics don’t generally map very well to individuals. The existence of outliers doesn’t disprove the population data either.
As an example:
“Men are (on average) taller than women” does not mean “all men are taller than all women”. But that the average height of men is higher, and the extreme ends of height are higher. The existence of short men does not disprove the average being taller.
That said cigarettes are clearly a high risk / zero reward sort of activity that is crazy to see continue into 2025.
Just because you don’t think there’s a reward doesn’t mean there is no reward.
90 year old has developed a chronic cough/sinus infection and she’s spent a lot of time talking to ENTs but she hasn’t given up the one thing that’s likely causing the problem. She’s been calling it allergies for about a year now.
But some asshole saw snow outside in 2009 and said “look at all this global warming” thus disproving it all.
/s
zero reward
If 50% of population accounts for the average, does that mean there is another 50% is an outlier? “On average” is just as meaningless as anecdotal evidence.
What an odd thing to say
If 50% of population accounts for the average
It doesn’t.
does that mean there is another 50% is an outlier?
No.
“On average” is just as meaningless as anecdotal evidence.
It’s not…
You don’t seem to understand how averages work and I’m not sure I can help you.
If you smoke enough you can theoretically travel back in time.
Jokes on you science, it takes me 21 minutes to smoke a cigarette.
That’s 41 minutes of your life gone, then.
Got it. Smoke two cigarettes at a time to increase my total lifespan.
Holy fuck you’re living in the future
Drinking coffee adds to your life. Soo.
Could make a Jaramusch film out that.
On average.
There’s always outliers on both sides. Which is important to remember because some pack a dayers making it to 90 makes people think it’s bullshit.
And for some people smoking is much worse than normal.
George Burns made it to 101 smoking five cigars and drinking a quart of scotch a day.
I do not recommend emulating his regimen for a long life.
How many minutes did I lose in those 5 years when I was smoking 3 packs a day?
2,190,000 minutes, or 4.167 years.
60 cigs x 20 minutes x 5 years x 365 days
Thank you, I was afraid people would think I was living up to my username…I am genuinely curious but also lazy and bad at math.
I think I did the math wrong. I got 83 years
I must have died years ago lol
Explain these assholes who do hard drugs and ruin the lives of everyone around them, and eventually get off drugs but still smoke like freight trains into their 80s and even when finally on breathing machines.
Meanwhile some good people who never did much wrong nor tried to destroy their body just randomly die at 50-60 years old.
Susan and Death talking:
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Wish I could upvote this twice
I’ll let you claim my upvote as yours.
Happy belated Hogswatch!
Nothing will fuck you half as hard as random chance. For every one of those people there are a lot of people who died young thanks to lifestyle choices.
Unfortunately morals and clean living are no indication of genetics.
Cognitive bias, for every hardcore drug addict/chain smoker who makes it into their 80’s, there are hundreds who have long since died.
But I think there might also be something to the whole, “too mean to die” thing. Some people seem to use the energy they get from spite and rage to continue fighting off death.
It used to be an hour. How is this “research” useful?
It shows how your time is only 1/3 as valuable as it used to be.
You’re being replaced with robots during the planets sixth mass extinction.
It adds tasty context.
Well shit, I lost a lot of minutes between the ages of 16 and 24.
I smoke a lot between ages 16 to 36, so I should be dead yesterday.
Don’t worry. It’s the worst minutes at the end of your life
What about the people from ww2 era that drink whiskey and smoke cigars daily and live to be 90?
Look into survivorship bias. The only 90 year old smokers you see are of course the ones that survived.
The statistic is an average. The 30 year old non-smoker being killed in an accident is an outlier exactly the same as the 90 year old that still smokes on the way to their grave. You might not lose anything because you die before you get lung cancer or you lose much more because you develop it at 40 years old, but on average a smoker loses 20 min per cigarette.
That’s how these statistics usually work:
(life expectancy of non-smokers - life expectancy of smokers) / # cigarettes an average smoker smokes in their lifetime
Obviously, it’s not literally like “that one cigarette ends your life 20 minutes earlier”.
Yeah it’s more like each cigarette is a bullet in an incredibly large barreled revolver that’s firing at you occasionally. But it’s also not the only thing loading it. Some people will survive by chance and a lot won’t. Clean living will increase the odds you live long and it’ll increase the odds you’re healthy while alive. But there are enough people that we have plenry of pediatric oncologists and plenty of 90 year old smokers. And even the 90 year olds that don’t smoke are outliers
Usually the exception. For every one of them that lasts till 90 there’s a dozen more dead by 70 via lung cancer, heart disease, or other truly horrifically painful way to die.
