Smoke, Booze and Dope

     College is a place where you get to meet a variety of people, get exposed to an assortment of cultures and lifestyles. It most certainly ranks among, if not, the BEST years of your life. Also, for one too many, college has traditionally been the birthplace of the habits of smoking, drinking and drug abuse. Being a normal college guy myself, I too have friends, including some of my dearest, who have taken to these ‘recreational’ activities. Yet I choose to abstain. A look at the reasons..

Following are some of the ‘traditional’ reasons  :

• Health Reasons
  
• Leads to addiction
  
• Moral Reasons
  
• Leads to being non-sociable

I personally find these feeble for a multitude of reasons.
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     Does this mean i support them ? So why not indulge myself ?
     The reasoning i give myself lies in the very basic question - Why Indulge ?
    The most common answer given is – “ To get high ”. The feeling of not feeling the responsibility, the freedom to be the actual person you want to be, the sense of elation, the illogical feel of being completely carefree. As great as this sensation maybe, this is the source of my concern and scorn.
     To think that i need to depend on an external factor to give me joy is greatly disturbing. What happens to the ‘Highs’ of everyday life ? The ‘high’ you get when you race against a bike on your cycle, the ‘high’ you get when your project really works, the ‘high’ you feel when your crush crosses by, the ‘high’ of teamwork, of accomplishment, the ‘high’ of solving a problem, the high of the rush of adrenaline when its a tight India - Pak match.
     Agreed that these may not be comparable to the scale of a dope, but as long as it is a mystery, I'm glad. To know that my ‘highs’ are not really highs is something that will make me loose all interest in life. This is a delusion agreed, but a delusion willingly embraced. After all, life is not measured by the number of breath’s taken but by the number of moments that took your breath away.