Social Smoking, Social Media

I had a friend who smoked when I was in my twenties. One day she left a cigarette pack at my apartment, and because I was young and was testing boundaries, I grabbed the pack, went out on my balcony and smoked a cigarette. Of course, not being a real smoker, I coughed. I didn’t particularly like the smoking part... so I sucked back on it as fast as I could. As I started to feel the effects, I felt great. The world was sharp, and I felt like I could cut through problems. I suddenly understood why smoking had taken over the world for a while. Immediately afterwards I threw the rest of the pack in the garbage, knowing full well that if I ever smoked a second cigarette, it would be the beginning of addiction and dependency. That day built a huge amount of empathy for smokers, as I knew full well that I could be there too but for a few different choices. Anyhow, this is a post about why I haven’t posted on Mastodon in a while. Facebook was great when I first got on there. For young people…