Atonement musings

Since Elul began last month, I've purposely been doing a lot of introspection and, in many ways, have found myself changing - ever so subtly and slightly, but changing nonetheless. It's not so much that I'm learning new things: the positive things I need to implement in my life and the negative things I need to omit from my life, are things which I have always known and things I knew I needed to do. Call it laziness/procrastination/downright complacency, I've just never done what I needed to do. But Elul came about, and, with it, came a forceful push to look at myself properly, and, more than that, get the ball rolling on changing. With the introspection came, for the first time in my life, a hand-in-hand approach to change. I married the two together in my head, and, so, couldn't do one without the other. It was a conscious decision to do this - and while the journey of introspection will never be over, my current push for introspection/self-evaluation/change was all geared towards the coming of this awe-inspiring Day of Atonement which begins in a mere few hours.

Yom Kippur: the final realization of these past six weeks.

I've been thinking alot about perfection in general and I posted a blog about this elusive state of perfection a few weeks ago. Perfection, to me, is a very relative and personal thing. What can be considered to be perfection by one, is perhaps  utter imperfection to another. We all have different standards, different goals, different outlooks, different purposes, different abilities, different talents, different experiences, different personalities, and, as such, we all have differing views on what perfection entails. A six year old child draws a picture of a horse and, to her, that is perfection. Leonardo da Vinci paints a painting of a mysterious woman, and to him (and many in the world) that is the (or, one) overarching standard of perfection. Much as personalities, values and goals change with time, so too does personal measures of perfection. The six year old child who drew that picture of a horse may look back when she is ten and be astounded that she ever thought that was the highest she could achieve. Perfection (or, let's use the word contentment, but to me, they are interchangable as they are both desired states where we wish do to be, but oftentimes, are not) is a clean, orderly, yet cluttered room and rainy weather - whereas to someone else, it would be sunny weather and a minimalist decor. Perfection depends on the person. Happiness depends on the individual. I'm not sure if there is an overriding Standard of Perfection somewhere out there in the universe, but somehow I don't think there is. I think life is simply too varied for there to be a particular, generic standard. Life isn't the ISO; it is not always ordered like a stately British manor. Life is chaotic and unpredictable; life abounds with differences and uniqueness. This is what makes Life beautiful: that in it's chaotic and many varied differences, life doesn't present us with only one type of perfection, because Life has seen to it that we are all different.

Perfection is in the eyes of the beholder.

In many ways, Judaism as a spiritual pathway agrees with me on this point. We are not given a model of someone to emulate and follow. There is no WWJD equivalent in Judaism; there is no hadith to tell us which side of the bed we should sleep on or how many women we can marry because our chief prophet did so. Instead, the Tanakh captures the stories of very many individuals, each of whom went through very different, very unqiue experiences; each of whom were faced with different goals to accomplish, different hurdles to cross; each of whom whose stories captured their imperfections and failures, but, in so doing, highlighted their greatness precisely because of their ever-steady quest to achieve their missions. There was never One Prophet in Judaism - there were Prophets and great people; each of whom had a unique story and a unique purpose to fulfill. Ask a roomful of Jews who the most important prophet in Judaic history was and you'd be greeted a compendium of answers: Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Deborah, Herzl. We were not given one man/woman to look up to - we were given many. Many men and many women, whose greatness was in their journeys, whose greatness was in their attempts to achieve their missions/unique perfections, whose greatness was in their constant determination to try, to try and to try again.  This is what makes Moses, Ruth, David, Abraham, Daniel, Esther and all the rest great. This is what made them worthy of being remembered. They didn't try to emulate anyone else; they were ever faithful to charting their own course/story and trying to achieve their personal best/perfection. This is what we must emulate: we must find our own unique destinies, our own unique missions and try to fulfill it using our unique abilities, skills and talents. God did not intend for me to emulate anyone else, because He made me who I uniquely am, just as much as he didn't intend for you to be Sarah or Joshua. If He had wanted us to emulate any of the great prophets or sages or great people who populate the wide scope of Jewish history, well, He would have made us exactly like them, in exactly their time, with exactly their life circumstances, and exactly their genetic make-up.

I am who I am. You are who you are.

Find your unique perfection and strive to embrace it, while being inspired by others, but not trying to be them.

Yom Kippur, to me, is more than just my atonement of my past transgressions. It's the culmination of an annual journey - a day to do more than beg forgiveness. It's about realizing that mistakes made in the past are just that, past. Judaism is a verb - it is a religion of doing more than it is a religion of faith. It is easy to have faith, easy to believe, easy to know what's wrong and right - but it is much more difficult to do, to act. Forgiveness is not just in saying sorry, it's about doing sorry - showing that one has realized the mistakes of the past and will actively not seek to repeat them in the future. Yom Kippur is the final day of a six-week journey that we are blessed with each year to look closely at ourselves and to evaluate where we are and where we want to be. It's the time when we pick up that puerile picture of the horse we drew this past year and realize that we can do even better, and, thus, set an even higher level of perfection for ourselves.

Perfection

Attempting perfection is worth more than achieving perfection. It's the effort that counts.

(A personal pep-talk for myself)

In my life I've found that I've always had this odd preoccupation with "perfection". Not in the conventional sense of perfection in everything I do (because truth be told, I'm oddly attracted to flaws), but rather perfection in the direction I want my life to take. I guess "perfection" is not the right word to describe what I'm looking for - maybe I'm not that good at writing as I think I am. How can I explain it properly? When I was younger, I'd chart out my week by breaking it down into little bits and pieces and have a rating system down next to each bit and piece. Then, I'd cumulatively sum the score and  and rate the day as a whole based on the scores for each bit and piece: was it an amazing day?, an ok day?, a day which fell below my projections? I actually felt fulfilled in making these timetables, and a lot more satisfaction in checking it off at the end of the day. I still make these sort of lists in my 20's, primarily concerned with those areas of my life that need structuring: my writing, my studying, my Hebrew, my Jewish studies, my eating, my exercising, my smoking; but it was in those early years that my list-making compulsion bordered on the somewhat... obsessive.

It's not the list-making that I want to write about tonight: it's this penchant for wanting to compartmentalise all the various aspects and areas of my life, and, thus be able to ascertain whether or not I'm succeeding in where I want to be in life, where I want to go. It's a sort of control mechanism, and over the years I've come to realise that in trying to structure things - while it does bring me a great amount of satisfactory joy - I'm never exactly able to reach the lofty, albeit daily, goals I set for myself.

I'm not an unhappy person in the micro-sense of the word. But when I step out of myself and look at everything from the point of view of the big picture, it can and does make me worried and somewhat... afraid, simply because I hardly ever achieve what I want to achieve. It's a matter of discipline, of inspiration, of dedication, of motivation, of focus - and the sad thing is, it's so easy for me to lose all of these sources. I'm so easily distracted. So were I as fastidious as I used to be in my childhood, I'd probably be rating each day as highly unfulfilled. It's a sad truth, but it's a truth - one I must come to terms with and accept, and even more importantly, try to change.

I have to understand that if I falter in one minute, it doesn't matter. The upcoming minute is a fresh new start. There is no need to throw the towel in on everything if one tiny bit is compromised. Just dust yourself off, Nick, and try again. When I look back on all my days, as separate composites within a greater whole, I realise that the days where I at least try, are the days where I can, in hindsight, feel proud.

Take writing for instance. I've divided this wide area into four distinct groupings: working on my book, blogging, writing in my diary, and writing articles. In the past 48 hours, I've managed to do three out of the four. Awesome check next to those three, resulting in a cumulative score of awesome, resulting in a very happy Nick.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this particular blog is: is it about my quest for daily and overall "perfection" (for want of a much better word), or is it about my weird compulsive trait of listing and comparing and determining results? Perhaps it's a bit of both. I'm probably always going to be making lists and resolving to be better in the next minute/hour/day/week/month, and I'm probably always going to falter in achieving these goals I set, but I've got to try. My parents are both quite organised people, and I suppose this desire to structure my life is a genetic boon (or flaw, depending upon how you look at it), but the attempt to accomplish my targets is a struggle I'm going to have to embrace. It's the attempt that counts, right? 

In the past few days, in re-reading the current manuscript I'm working on, I'm finding the writing not as up to par as I thought it was ten months ago. Have I grown in that time? Have I progressed as a writer such that I'm no longer satisfied with what was considered "perfection" back then? I know that in writing, it makes no sense to continuously and endlessly edit, because I'm always going to find errors and find things I want to change, link, develop, omit, add. I know there will come a time when I'll have to say "Ok! This is it! Time to get a move on with literary agents, etc.", but I don't think this is what's going on right now. I've ignored my manuscript for the past few months - perhaps on purpose, but I'm not ashamed to throw in the possibility that it was sheer lack of motivation which led to the aforementioned abandonment - and this current re-reading isn't leaving me a very happy camper. True, yesterday wasn't a very good day for me, as my sleep cycle had been wack (as usual; this is another area of my life which is in desperate - extremely desperate! - need of fixing), so maybe that's why I thought my writing wasn't very good, but I'm also reading V.S Naipaul's Among the believers and I can compare the two styles, and, truth be told, my writing isn't even near his level. And the thing is, and I'm not being egotistical here, I know I have the talent and ability to write with comparable flair. Yes, there were bits of my manuscript which still stood out as "perfection" but so many others are leaving the "imperfect" aftertaste in my mouth... I don't think I'm being too harsh.

Writing is an art form, it's a skill, and like any creative subject, it needs practice to be properly honed and perfected. The writer of today is going to be a vastly different writer in a year, or two, and even more vastly different in a decade. Creativity is never going to be the same, and the artist will forever be growing and moving upwards.

I admit, in my weird quest for perfection, in the past few hours, I've thought about abandoning my manuscript and starting on something else. But that's what I've done all my life. When "perfection" hasn't been achieved, I give up and let go and wait for another time to try again. I can't do that now, can I? I've nursed this story for so long (granted, I haven't really put enough time into it, and, in hindsight, I haven't truly dug deep and can go a whole lot deeper), so why do that? It's time to just do it. Just do it, Nick. Just stop being lazy, just find the motivation, just dig deep and do it.

Attempt.

Then, when I look back next week, I can feel fulfilled; even if I didn't exactly reach my targeted mark for the week, I can, at least, have that feeling of satisfaction of knowing: at least you attempted.

And who knows, maybe I might succeed.

So the goals will be set (as per usual), but I'm going to make the effort after setting the goals - I'm going to try.

I am officially a non-smoker...

... well, almost, anyway.

For a long time I've been thinking about giving up cigarettes; as much as I enjoy smoking (and I most certainly do), I've decided - after much deliberation - to put the lighter away, throw the cigarettes into the bin and just stop. 

And that's what I did today: I've officially quit smoking.

Cigarettes, we've had a joyous time together, but enough is enough.

That's not to say I just woke up this morning, decided to stop and boom!, all my cravings just magically went out the door and was immediately transformed into a non-smoker. Not in the slightest. This was a planned and entirely deliberate - but also extremely private - decision that I made for myself. Throughout my long years of being a smoker, the compulsion to stop almost always found its way into my head; I'd always plan ahead to quit, but somehow just never did. "Ok, I'll stop on my birthday/on New Years Day/after exams/for Rosh haShanah/on Sunday morning/on Bastille Day/whenever the sun is shining." Quitting smoking, like expecting Godot to show up, seemed a very pleasant thing to plan for, but would never truly come to fruition.

Yes, I enjoyed smoking, but the long-term, negative effects of this pastime of mine were never lost on me; I knew I had to stop. I knew the odious repercussions that inevitably come attached with being smoker, and now, today, being a (somewhat) former smoker, I am not going to list those health problems here, primarily because, as a (somewhat) former smoker, I know there is nothing - NOTHING - more annoying than a non-smoker, former smoker or (somewhat) former smoker coming to a smoker in almost gleeful, smug, self-righteous pretend-concern and outlining those possible health repercussions of smoking. 

"Why do you smoke? Don't you know you can get lung cancer? Or emphysema? Or throat cancer? Or tongue cancer? Or mouth cancer? Or esophageal cancer? Do you think you weren't loved enough as child? Is that why you started smoking? You really should try to stop. It's not good for you. Plus, you just burnt me with you cigarette."

No shit, Sherlock. I didn't know. Thanks for telling me.

(Also, at this point, let me just pause to apologize to the very many people I did indeed burn with my cigarettes over the years. I am profusely sorry. When you start smoking, you are welcome to attempt to return the favor - but as a former smoker, please note that I might just look at you with concern, and almost gleefully, smugly and self-righteously outline to you the possible health repercussions of smoking).

Yes, it can be annoying when others try to force it upon a smoker that he/she should stop. 

Just don't.

If someone wants to stop smoking, or to attempt to stop smoking, it will be their decision that they will make on their own on their time. Just let them be. Hand them an ashtray and direct them to the smoking section, but please, curb the smoking-will-kill-you speeches.

We know.

But I digress. Back to the point.

Me: a non-smoker.

I started smoking when I was sixteen. Yes, people may say I was peer-pressured (I wasn't - although I was, at the time, dating a smoker, and this did directly contribute to my initial foray into the world of smoking); people may say I was trying to be cool (bullshit - I'm cool whether or not a delicious menthol cigarette is dangling from my lips and anyone who's met me can attest to this glorious fact); people may say I have an oral fixation (which, I admit, I do - just take a look at the dozens of chewed-up pen covers in my desk draw); or they may even say that I suffered from a lack of love in my childhood which caused me to turn to this awful habit (parents get the blame for a whole lot - but come on, blaming them for smoking? That's a tad bit unfair - and I'm all for blaming my parents for everything. Just not this. This was all me). 

The truth is, I started smoking because, plain and simple, I loved cigarettes. 

I love the smell of cigarette smoke.

I love the smell of a fresh pack of cigarettes.

I just love cigarettes.

Growing up, my maternal grandfather was a smoker, and there was nothing in the world I thought smelt better than the fragrant cigarette-y smell he left in his wake. Perhaps it is genetic: a disposition towards smoking, because I just loved, loved, loved the smell of cigarettes as a child. But then again, perhaps it's not genetic, because except for my grandfather, no one on my mother's side are smokers. At the end of the day, however, this is neither here nor there: the fact remains, I was attracted to the smell of cigarettes, and so, I think it was inevitable that I would eventually succumb to my fascination with the smell and resultantly become a smoker. Coupled with this was the whole romanticism of smoking; the idealism of the act: there is something very appealing about that slim, delicate stick hanging tantalizingly at the side of a mouth - my mouth. It made me feel grown-up and intelligent; after all, every writer smoked - didn't Hemmingway smoke? And what about Paul Sheldon of Stephen King's Misery, whose ritual of smoking only after completing a manuscript had managed to pique my adolescent, smoker-to-be imagination? Holding a lit cigarette and going through that ritual of Cigarette-to-mouth, Inhale, Deep, Exhale, Repeat, made me feel rebellious and smart, mysterious and cool all at once. As I continued smoking, I began to enjoy the taste of the tobacco - ascertaining which brands of cigarettes appealed to my taste-buds, and eventually settling on a preferred brand and flavor (I started out with Du Maurier regulars, then switched to Du Maurier menthols, then Benson & Hedges menthols, then finally choosing Dunhill menthols and Marlboro menthols as my preferred choices). Cigarettes were physically satisfying: the feel of the smoke entering my mouth and ever so slightly burning as I inhaled it into my throat and lungs brought me the most delicious feeling of marvelousness which can never be translated into words for the non-smoker to ever understand. The smell of the cigarette smoke - which had been my initial pull - became only part of my reason for falling in love with this delicious (and, admittedly, dangerous - but for reasons other than health, which I will elucidate on further) habit; now it was the taste, the feel and the look of the thing, and when something is so all-encompassingly satisfying, it becomes more than just an habit: it becomes something you depend upon.

As a (somewhat) former smoker, I think it necessary at this juncture to admit the most embarrassing thing of all, the real danger of my smoking: I became so dependent on cigarettes that, for the past twelve years, they governed my life.

You hear stories of people hooked on meth, cocaine, heroin and all these other drugs and you automatically think to yourself: can a person really become so addicted to something? I'm not at all equating my fixation on cigarettes with the horrors that drug addicts go through - but being a (somewhat) former smoker, I can, to some extent, understand why and how it is a person can become addicted to a substance (drugs, gambling, sex, food, etc., hell, we humans can get addicted to anything, really!); and I can understand, how, eventually, that thing can consume a person's life. Cigarettes may not be as harmful or as devestatingly addictive as drugs or alcohol, but it does cause a dependency which can be equally as controlling. The first thing I'd do most mornings is smoke; the last thing I'd do before bed was smoke. My days were filled with 3 minute slots of smoking where I'd manage to inhale just shy of full pack of 20's. If there was family around, I'd find ways to leave the house or to dismiss them in order to smoke (though my parents know I smoke, I've never had the balls to do so in front of them); I'd make up excuses to go outside, or go to the store - something, anything, just to get my cigarette to my lips. Cigarettes became more than just something I did to relax, or to unwind, or to just have a time-out: my days revolved around when I smoked. I smoked when I was bored, I smoked when I was having fun. I smoked when I drove, I smoked when I walked. I smoked when I was relaxed, I smoked when I was stressed. I smoked and I smoked and I smoked - every day, for twelve years, I consumed at least one cigarette. 

We are a fragile race, us humans; it is easy for us to fall into a routine, to develop habits... to become addicted. 

For less than a year, up until March of this year, I took ambien (the sleeping pill), at first infrequently, and then, almost every day. Ambien is marketed as a marvelous sleep aid (and it is, when used in the proper capacities): not particularly strong, it allows one to drift off to sleep, but doesn't knock one out with a punch that leaves one groggy and glassy-eyed the next day. Rather, ambien lulls a person to sleep and regulates sleep patterns. Much touted as a drug which one cannot become addicted to, ambien seems like the perfect sleep aid, almost too good to be true. And it is: seemingly perfect and almost, but not quite, good. You see, there is this tiny window of... opportunity, shall we call it?... where, after taking ambien, you can experience the most delicious high ever. At first, when I took ambien, I'd crawl straight into bed and did not know about the high as I'd just fall asleep. But one day after taking ambien, I didn't go under my covers; instead, I picked up my cigarettes (damn you, cigarettes!) and rather than falling asleep, I experienced the high of a lifetime (or at least my very sheltered lifetime): the ambien high. All inhibitions are lost: phone-calls are made (that you can't exactly remember doing the next day); emails are written (that you can't exactly remember doing the next day); Facebook statuses are updated (that you can't exactly remember the next day); a bottle of wine is finished (that you can't exactly remember doing the next day); pasta is eaten (that you can't exactly remember doing the next day) - wonderfully asinine things are done as the ambien magic grips you, causing you to drop all inhibitions in the moment, but bringing on a surge of powerful remorse the next day as you painfully (but not always) recollect the things you did the under before.

I became so entrenched in the routine of taking ambien - no longer to fall asleep, but now to experience this unnatural high. It became a routine for me, and nights when I didn't have any ambien felt wasted. As the days slipped into weeks, and then into months, I realized that I was addicted to the high; not to the ambien itself. While in normal doses ambien doesn't leave a person groggy, I was abusing it so frequently that my days would pass by like a dream. I read up on ambien addiction (yes, it is possible to become addicted - despite the manufacturers' grand claims otherwise) and I realized that I was possibly on my way to becoming an ambien addict. Ambien addicts are unable to fall asleep without ambien (I hadn't reached that level just yet, as I would manage to get to bed, even without the ambien and it's accompanying high), ambien addicts experience awful nightmares when they manage to sleep without it (I only, usually, have very pleasant dreams - unless, of course, I ate something particularly sour right before bed. One can never have pleasant dreams when one's stomach is churning), and, most importantly, ambien addicts experience painful withdrawals when they stay away from it (which I never experienced). Given that I'd experienced none of these things, I definitely was not (yet) an ambien addict.. Friends would joke and call me a junkie, and though I scoffed (and still scoff) at the idea, the truth is, I probably would have eventually ended up thus had I not gone to Israel in March and made the decision to go there sans ambien. I don't think the situation was that precarious, to be perfectly honest, because when I left Trinidad, I had no problems falling asleep, and, indeed, for the first few weeks, managed to regulate my sleep-cycle according to Israel time quite easily, waking up bright and early each day and going to bed at reasonable nightly hours. I didn't even think about ambien at all, and it was only when I returned home that it hit me: I didn't have any ambien for over six weeks, and you know what, Nick? - that's fine. But then my ultimate test came: I found an ambien the day after I returned, lurking ominously on my bedside table in an innocent clear white plastic bag. I was tempted to throw it away, but I wanted to see: was this really worth it? Was I really so enamored of the ambien high? I knew it was a dangerous game to play, but for old times sake, before bedtime, I popped it in my mouth and went through the old, familiar feeling of high. I very vaguely remember making phone calls whilst on this most recent binge, but when I woke up the next morning, I came to the final realization: I didn't need this. It was fun, yes, but it was keeping me back. The mortifying after-effect of cleaning up whatever uninhibited mess I'd made the night before (the odd Facebook statuses, the querulous emails, the ranting phone calls) coupled with that dazed feeling which accompanied me for most of the day absolutely and resolutely cut any and all desires I harbored for ambien.

I was completely, totally and utterly over my fascination with ambien. It was as simple as that, and though it's only been a little over six weeks since I stopped taking ambien regularly (and only a week and two days since I last sampled it), the end synopsis remains the same: ambien and I have parted ways and thankfully, it was a most amicable split.

After this epiphany, I began to reflect on the issue of addiction as a whole. True, I'm not and was not an actual ambien addict, but I found a tagline, which, to some may seem silly, but it's a mantra which I think is applicable in every potentially negative situation: Is it worth it? 

I've used this line on myself many times: when shopping for superfluous things, when gearing up for an argument, when pausing by KFC - I ask myself, "Is it worth it?", and more often than not, my mind answers me with a quiet "No", which, later on (provided I've listened to my mind), leads to me feeling very satisfied that I didn't waste money on unnecessary clothes, or waste an hour arguing, or gobble down the KFC that would automatically perch it's fatty self around my midsection.

Is it worth it?

Pretty simple.

Now, as you may have guessed, I do have a rather addictive personality, and there are many things which can hook me, be they ambien, cigarettes or the host of other (thankfully, non-substance) things, which I won't mention at this time to bore you with the trivialities of my life unconnected to this particular post. My little ditty of "Is it worth it?" worked with ambien, with shopping, with the associated fat which sneakily shadows the unhealthy foods I sometimes (ok, oftentimes) choose to eat...

... but what about the biggest addiction in my life: cigarettes?

Would my miracle cure of "Is it worth it?" work there, too?

Perhaps.

It's worth a try, isn't it?

Of course, I'm not puerile enough to think that this would be an addiction I can beat on my own with my little mantra. As powerful as "Is it worth it?" may have been to work at beating, curbing and preventing little hiccups (even a big hiccup like my ambien phase), with cigarettes I know I need something stronger and more powerful - because this addiction is not merely psychological like the others, there is also the tangible and very physical aspect of this addiction, that is to say, that all-consuming, powerful nicotine, which hooks the smoker and reels him in. Yes, "Is it worth it?" is going to play a part, but I need an accomplice.

Which brings me to today: May 22nd 2012 - today, I started the Nicoderm patch.

I am officially a non-smoker... well, almost anyway.

They say to get over any addiction, you need to get through the toughest hurdle: the first three days; and then, the second toughest hurdle: the ensuing three weeks. Get through those and everything will be easy as pie.

But then again, while you may overcome the addiction, you are, after all, still an addict. The temptation is still there and probably always will be. Which is why you have to keep reminding yourself why you chose to no longer indulge in your particular drug of choice.

My reasons are varied, and, admittedly, very cliche. In no particular order of importance, they are as follows:

1. Health reasons: I find my laugh to no longer be as easy as it once was. I have a smoker's laugh - there is rattling, throaty, wheezy sound which laces what used to be an easy, pleasant laugh. While I don't suffer from any sort of short-breath, I do notice that my chest seems congested and I am slightly phlegm-y at times in my lungs. My gums and lips have darkened as a result of my smoking as well, and while this is a purely cosmetic reason, I've grouped it in here, because, obviously, clearly, that is not good.

2. Smell: While I would probably always love the smell of cigarette smoke and cigarettes in general, I have to admit, I do not, under any circumstances, like the lingering smell of old cigarette smoke. I used to smoke in my room, but in 2010, I made the concerted effort to stop and haven't since done so. Cigarettes, when fresh, have a very appealing scent to my nostrils, but the the staleness of old cigarette smoke is not something I particularly like. The smoke clings to one's clothes, one's hair, one's body and to be perfectly frank, it's just gross. Of course, I still would kiss a smoker, and, would still very much enjoy kissing a smoker - but I'm tired of waking up with the taste of last night's cigarette's on my breath. I love when I don't drive my car for a couple days and it's been washed and there's no stale cigarette-y smell permeating the interior of my car - but I hate when I open the door and see those little specks of white cigarette ashes all over the place and am greeted with stale cigarette smell. I hate when I put my finger to my nose and am confronted by the smell of cigarettes.

3. Vanity: There are no visible wrinkles in my skin (fingers crossed!), but I know that a forgone conclusion for smokers is that one's skin ages prematurely. Not to mention, my right index fingernail has a yellowish tinge, which, I'm told is an indicator of a smoker. Furthermore, my teeth: while I do take care of them and don't have a smoker's smile, per se (thank you Crest Whitestrips!), my teeth aren't as brilliantly white as they used to be. 

4. Dependence: I hate being dependent on cigarettes. I hate that my days, studies, time spent with family, trips and everything else is governed by this all-consuming dependence on cigarettes. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want, without having to chaperone my addiction and need for cigarettes. "Is there a smoking section in that restaurant? No? Then I don't think I'll go." Enough. Stop governing my life, cigarettes.

5. Money: I waste copious amounts of money on cigarettes. Cigarettes, by themselves, are increasingly expensive, but whenever I go to fetch myself a pack, I never buy just a pack of cigarettes. I end up buying food, or snacks, or some other unnecessary something, which, in most instances, is just as unhealthy as the pack of cigarettes. 

I know it's important to keep reminding myself of these reasons, because even though it's been just a day, and even though I've plastered my Step1 Nicoderm patch onto my arm quite securely, I felt the desperate desire for a cigarette at various points throughout the day, which, when you think about it, goes to show that addiction (to substances) is never a purely physical thing, and needs to be worked at daily. 

But I managed to get through today - not easily, mind you - but I got through it. Every time I thought of putting a delicious cigarette to my mouth and lighting up, I kept thinking of my reasons for quitting and thinking to myself: "You've made it three/four/five/fifteen hours - do you really want to let go now? Is it worth it?" and I struggled through the minutes of craving and, surprise, surprise, it wasn't worth it anymore. 

Cigarettes: be gone.

Ok, truthfully, I don't know if I'll smoke in social settings. Perhaps I shouldn't, because if I have one, I'll probably want another, and then another, and then another, and then I'll end up buying a pack and smoking it on the way home, which would probably inevitably lead to having cigarettes at home, which would obviously mean that I would smoke at home, which would mean, ta da!, I would have defeated the purpose and would have fallen off the bandwagon. Look, I'm a realist. I know that if I drink, I'm probably going to want a cigarette. Does that mean I'll never drink again? Of course not. But at least for the eight weeks I'm on Step1 of my Nicoderm course, and then for the four weeks of the Step2 and Step3 phases, I will not be drinking since in my head drinking+cigarettes=completion... at least this is how I feel right now since I am not a former smoker just yet, but a (somewhat) former smoker. Ok, I know my birthday falls in the middle of all of this Nicoderm-ing, and I know I'll want to celebrate, but for now, I'll just say I'll drink moderately and, well, if it comes to smoking, I'll have my friends to pull me up by my britches, won't I?

Giving up smoking (as with quitting any addiction) means cutting the triggers which remind you of indulgence in cigarettes. Unfortunately for me, there are many, many, many triggers which set me off thinking about smoking. The trick that has worked for me (at least in my +24 hours of having quit smoking) is the constant repetition of: "Is it worth it?"

I didn't intend to publicize this decision of mine to quit smoking, because I felt if I fell off the bandwagon, it would be easy to not have anyone know and thus, judge me. But when I think about it carefully, I realize that publicizing it would work towards keeping me in line precisely for the reason that I wouldn't want to be judged as a failure.

So there you have it: I am a (somewhat) former smoker.

And yes, it's worth it.

Wish me luck.

Yom haShoah 2012

Today, in Israel, Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day - is being observed. It is, at once, a most profound day: a day of mourning, a day of hope; a day to remember and reflect, and a day to look forward and look beyond. On this day we, collectively, as a nation, remember those whose lives were brutally extinguished at the hands of barbarians - not just Jews who suffered under the Nazis, but all Jews who were persecuted from time immemorial:  from the ancient Hebrews in Egypt all the way down through the generations to modern Israelis today. HaShem warned us, quite correctly, that in every generation they shall rise up against us - and even the most casual skimmer of Jewish history will be able to attest to the fulfillment of this prophecy. I find it to be particularly poignant that the State of Israel chose this day - so close on the heels of that holiday which excitedly celebrates our freedom from Egypt - to remember that though we are a free nation, we are still plagued by those who hate us and seek our destruction. Pesach compels us to celebrate that we are a free nation; Yom haShoah comes a few days later to remind us that the struggle for freedom is an on-going one.

I came to Israel at this particular time for a number of reasons. One, I simply missed it. I just missed being in Israel with all my heart and soul - and so, I needed to be back, even if for this very short burst of time that I am here. I needed be back in haAretz, because, sadly to say, as much as I love Trinidad & Tobago, and as much as I love the Jewish community there, there is simply no outlet for a modern Orthodox adherent to channel his yiddishkeit. But I chose this particular point in time - during Pesach - to be here because I missed the religiousness of this powerful chag. Yes, I knew Yom haShoah, Yom haAtzmaut, et al. were to follow quickly on the heels of Pesach, but they weren't my main focuses for being here now - but, as with all things in life, these "by-product" Days (particularly Yom haShoah) have managed in a very subtle and wily way to affect me just as profoundly as the magnificent holiday of Pesach.

I am a convert - and a proud one at that. Insomuch as I chose Judaism, Judaism chose me - we found each other through the conduit of a loving, merciful and wonderful God. In the religious community - particularly in Israel - I am never identified as the convert, per se. People here are more aware of the halacha surrounding this sensitive issue and - even if they peg me as a ger or not (I've gotten numerous quizzical questions in Israel like "Temani?" "Cochin?" I've even gotten, once, when I was wearing a cap and looking particularly dark "Beta Israel?" - which is all very hilarious. I once ran into a group of Indian Jews one Shabbat and they were so excited to see me, just as much as I was to see them. They were visibly disappointed that I wasn't an Indian Jew of their community - but when I told them I was from Trinidad & Tobago, the men in the group lit up with questions about Brian Lara and whether I knew him) they never make me feel uncomfortable about it. In Trinidad, however, where the community has such a loose understanding of the religious aspect of Judaism, I've been introduced as "the convert", and I've heard a man (whose own Jewish ancestry is very vague and questionable) make the comment that there are only a few "real Jews" in Trinidad and then the rest are converts such as myself; a statement which rests on the assumption that I, and the rest of the Jewish-Trinidadian population, am and are not "real", whereas he is. It's hurtful, but I don't hold it against anyone in Trinidad for thinking along those lines because Judaism in it's spiritual/religious form, sadly, has no root in my home country, and the simplistic religious understanding that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew, regardless of where he/she came from, will probably never be understood halachically there.

The reason I bring this up at this juncture is to connect the thoughts which are running amok in my head as a result of this day: Yom haShoah. The fact remains that, until mashiach comes, in every generation they will rise up against us. Yes, us. Wherever I may choose to live in life - be it Trinidad, or back to England, or back to Israel, or perhaps even the States - I will be branded a "Jew", with all the negative connotations that word conjures up in the mind of the antisemitic. I have chosen a path which will lead my children, and their children, and their children after that, into certain heartache, pain and, dare I say it?, death. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the matriarch, "Rachel weeping for her children" - and wherever she may be, Rachel has wept a lot, for her children has suffered and continue to live under the threat of continued suffering. My children will be part of Rachel's progeny - some of them may stay within the garden of Judaism, some may choose to leave - who knows what the future holds?, but the fact is, that, some of them will remain Jews in perpetuity, and, they will have to live with the national, ancient remembrance of heartache and sorrow that this day signifies. There are times, particularly on days like today, or days when I read of the existential threats Jewish people in Israel and in the diaspora face, and I falter within myself and feel like crying. My commitment and steadfastness to the religion of Avraham is unwavering and unquestionable - but this is my choice that I made for me. What of my kids and their kids? I'm pulling them into a place where there will be the very real possibility of much suffering.

But then - I give them a gift unlike any other which I can give to them. The thing that many people fail to realize is that when we, converts and born-Jews alike, choose a life of derech haTorah, we are not making a decision which affects just us in our solitary lives. We make a decision which will reverberate through the generations which will follow us. Yes, my kids - as Jews, be they Israelis or whatever - will have to face unspeakable horrors which I can't predict (but I hope and pray, these horrors will never come), but my kids will have a gift: they will be part of Israel. They will mourn on Yom haShoah and Tisha b'Av and all the other mourning days - but they will celebrate on Pesach, they will feel their hearts lift when the Israeli flag flies proudly on Yom haAtzmaut, they will banter in midrashim, they will enjoy the culinary pleasures of being shomer kashrut, they will fight to defend their faith, their people and their land: my kids will follow the faith that I have chosen - and they will understand that it's the best inheritance I could have given to them.

Yom haShoah has relevance to our lives today as Jews. The Holocaust may have happened 60+ years ago, but the evil which fueled it is finding ever-new, ever-ingenius ways to try to attack us. The founders of the modern State were wise to place the national Day of Holocaust Remembrance smack dab in the middle of the end of Pesach, and then the beginning of Yom haAtzmaut next week. The Jewish story is one of rebirth and the fight for life wherever death faces us. 

As I stood quietly for the two minutes when the sirens sounded, I focused my thoughts on the victims of the Nazi regime. I let my mind think of those faces I have seen in pictures whose sunken eyes and skeletal frames are forever burned into my memory. I thought of them and wept and I spent the two minutes praying for them - hoping that they have found peace wherever they may be. The two minutes went by in this way and then, at the end, when it was over, when the people started to walk again and the cars started to drive again, I was forcefully reminded: life goes on. Judaic life has continued, despite the better efforts of evil. Israel was born - the Jewish population in the world is steadily increasing and nearing the peak it was prior to World War 2.

As long as God lives - we will live.

Never forget the Holocaust - and, never forget there is a future.

There is only up from here

It's been a while since I've used this blog. I always think to myself: I need to blog, I need to capture my thoughts, I need to chronicle what's happening in my life.

When I was a child, I used to write religiously in a journal of sorts; in an odd way, I knew there would be a time when I would want to revisit those puerile thoughts and feel the nostalgia of my youth - and I was right. Those journals lay quietly in a box below my bed, and from time to time, they emerge from their holding place and are carefully unwrapped, touched, opened and eagerly read.

But as I grew older, into a teenager, and as the excitement of life took hold, the excruciating detailing of my (mundane?) life in a personal memoir became less and less important; less and less necessary. I started to write emails, sending them to my friends - emails which had nothing to do with anything, but everything to do with who I was, who I was becoming. There were replies, which provoked replies, but the truth is, the emails were never meant specifically for any person. I wanted an audience for my thoughts: as facetious, narcissistic and mad as they may have been. I wanted someone - anyone - to understand.

But again, as I grow older, into a man, and the excitement of life continues to take hold, the sometimes painful detailing of my (thrilling?) life becomes more and more important; more and more necessary - for my own, personal reflection. I tell myself I would write in this blog more frequently; but procrastinating tendencies - and sheer laziness - stop me from putting finger to blog, and, instead, I find myself whipping through the pages of Facebook, excitedly noting the updates in my newsfeed, or thinking up interesting things to plot in my status.

I am at a low-point in my life. I'm losing friends at an alarming rate; I'm taking ambien to fall asleep often; I'm struggling with my Finance course to complete my MBA for the past year; I'm disappointedly discovering that within my local Jewish community, egos and desperate attempts to secure recognition are dividing the community and keeping it from fulfilling its truest potential.

I am at a low-point in my life.

I know what I need to do: I need to re-think my strategies, my priorities, my goals. I need to re-dedicate myself to my purpose which I have forgotten as the excitement of life takes hold and the hopeful goals I secretly wish to achieve are overshadowed by my mundane problems, worries, and everyday, unnecessary concerns.

Where is the boy who struggled for God? Who struggled to find meaning in life? Who yearned for more? Who was supposed to grow into a man much different from the one who exists today?

Is it ever too late?

No.

It never is.

I am an optimist, wrapped up in a pessimist, but an optimist nevertheless.

I believe that everything happens for a reason; that the universe presents us with ample, abundant opportunities which we must grasp at, embrace, and use to achieve our aims.

The fact of the matter is I've failed. I don't pray the way I used to; I don't read the way I used to; I don't think about God, my guardian angel, my Judaism the way I used to. The distractions have gotten in the way: television, Facebook, liming, drinking, ambien, smoking, friends.

I'm at a low-point in my life.

I forgotten what's important. I've forgotten what I've wanted to accomplish; to discover; to be.

I am at a low-point in my life, but the only place to go is up.

I need to recognize the offer the universe makes me to on a daily basis; the choice is mine, the change is within me.

This is my attempt to chronicle my thoughts from this point, this terrifying low-point, and allow my God to pull me back up. In writing I feel cleansed, and in writing, I feel happy. In writing I will record my thoughts and analyze the pattern of change.

In writing I will break this cycle.

In the morning I will pray. In the morning, I will open my siddur. In the morning, I will study my Hebrew verbs. I know that change never comes in the morning - it comes now. The wise, Jewish sages of yesteryear were wise in discerning that the beginning comes at dusk: at the darkest hour. The change doesn't come in the morning, although we go to bed thinking that it will; the change starts from before - it starts from now. This is why I'm writing this now - to remind myself, to prod myself, to give myself hope. This is a poignant time to make this change: the night sky shines through my open window - the seducing slant of the almost full-moon light pouring onto my bed.

A new cycle begins with the waxing of the moon, and at 4:28PM today, it will reach it's maximum potential and begin anew.

And so will I.

The complacency which has besieged me must go, and the only person to expel it from my life is me; the new cycle starts from here.

I will commit myself to being better - whatever that may mean, however I may interpret that to be.

I will find the strength, determination and grit to realign myself with my already-discovered purpose. So I went off-course a bit for the past couple years - so what? It's never too late.

Be the change that you want to be... or something to that effect.

There is only up from here.