I write this post with a heavy head, and a heavier soul. 18hrs of sleeplessness have gone by, a bad habit that I've grown to live with, and have grown very tired of. But here I am, yet again, typing away, because I believe that a thought suppressed is a thought destroyed.
This very morning as I was spending time in the early hours of the day wondering about curious everythings, puzzling somethings and condescending nothings, my half-blood brother Z lit up a cigarette. Not something my lazy eyes would notice. But there was something about this one time that caught my eye, and sent that little clock in my head ticking away into overdrive.
We have seen smokers, and we have seen smoke, but how many of us were curious about what the cigarette was going through at that very moment. A serious of chemical reactions that I dare not bore you with, but not to worry since I always sucked at chemistry, but that's not the point here. About how the flame dies out and engulfs the tip in an orange-red amalgamation of glory.
For those you who want to know and are curious, here are the estimates:
Without drawing:
Side of the lit portion: 400 deg C (or 752 deg F)
Middle of the lit portion: 580 deg C (or 1112 deg F)
Temperature during drawing:
Middle of the lit portion: 700 deg C (or 1292 deg F)
The above numbers represent the average obtained by performing several trials and can be considered accurate to within 50 deg C. A standard Fe-Cu Ni digital thermocouple thermometer was used in all trials.
(Courtesy: http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae1.cfm)
My aim in telling you all this my friend, is not to bore you with scientific facts, but to bring to your attention the power of the human mind, and the power of ignorance. We could not last two seconds with our fingers in a bowl of boiling water, which is a mere 100 deg C, but here we are, a few of us atleast, drawing away smoke that burns at 7 times the temp of boiling water. Which brings me to my point. My apologies to you dear reader, for making you go through the boring and painstaking ordeal of reading all this, but if you were not patient enough to read all this, you weren't meant to anyway.
On with the tale...
Man's behavior towards the burning cigarette and the boiling water are very similar to the sad truth of life. One cannot tolerate direct contact with 100 deg of hot water, but will bear 700 deg C of indirect smoke. You cannot tolerate another slapping you in the face, but you will willingly or helplessly turn the other cheek, when a stranger is shot dead before your very eyes. Disagree all you want my friend, but both of us know that a helpless man can do nothing but walk away. (And in response to that doubt that just popped up in your head, a man is not helpless if he chooses to stay) That is the truth. And that is the nightmare in this fairytale of fake faces and empty dreams. Some of us accept it, and some of us choose to change. Which side of the coin has your face embedded on it?
So, my friend, my question to you is....
Are you free to free yourself?
