Where is my vape? – the enslaving pursuit of happiness.

Wanda Narkiewicz – Jodko

former Bocconi University student, from Warsaw, Poland.

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Wait, where is my vape?

Now that I am sitting by the window in Erbert I dream of being in closer proximity to a vape having only my pathetic useless flavorless iqos by my side. A vape of working power, yes, but even the comforting site a perished one, shining brightly with memories of good. Therefore I reminisce on a very recent (within the 24 hour time bracket) session I was pursuing. Here it is, in real time:

A dead vape that I try to resurrect every once in a while, by sucking the life out of it, is lying on my chest as I type this sentence. It is a petite watermelon ice flavored Lost Mary that pleasured me only for a brief 4 day period – the 800 hit ones should not be trusted, they quickly turn into lifeless reminders of passing time, hospital walls, inhalers, respirators and very ugly and gross internal body deformations, as they are weak for the weak. That is, of course, unless they are very abruptly and mechanically replaced on the next trip to the Tabacchi / any properly equipped store.

I would really want to be one of the people who get a vape once a month and that’s all, I think at times when the 2 floors I just walked up feel like the New York Marathon. One vape, one month. But I stop myself when those thought being tormenting my spinning head. I loudly, as loudly as I can at least, my voice largely being gone on that second floor, tell myself to stop this self-depreciating rhetoric. “Want to be one of those people”. Who are the people? Where are they? Not I my room, not under my bed – I checked. They might be walking down the streets not looking for the vape in their coat pockets, because they probably wear those long black wool looking trenches or green North Face jackets. Yet on this Monday early afternoon which I turned into a Sunday morning the streets are dangerous for me, dangerous to my bare legs and naked shoulders.

I would rather not be because I already am. I belong to a class far more complex and committed than the easy going composed generic coat wearers. After all, I do have a bright candy red jacket.

And if I could breathe more during the day and sleep less during the night I would want that just so I could keep hitting my vape. People tell me I am addicted. So I must object. And object I do.

I drink a lot of water in general and in detail – every day I consume around 3 or 4 liters of the anti-beverage (because isn’t it one?). During the same 24 hours I also listen to music, drink coffee, eat small sweets sold just by the cashier, cross my legs when sitting. And this is continuous, only broken by sleep. I do not grow tired of those habits because why would I grow tired of myself. Boredom and weariness of this or that are made up concepts meant to enslave me, while at the same time being an argument people use to tell me I should just get a vape every once in a while, and not glue it to my mouth for my short eternity. Yet, my integrity will not be shattered by words with no power apart from the rotten Protestant Logic.

Some still try to reap me apart. Why would you want to keep doing it? Are you not so terrified of what is going on in your lungs by now? What about Congo, the children of yours, that chest pain you had a week ago?

Even typing these questions out felt foolish. First of all, I cannot SEE inside of myself dummy (physically of course, metaphysically it is more than surely possible). I am very terrified of a spider when I see it because it is in front of my eyes. I fear abandonment because I visually encountered loneliness. But how can I fear something that is inside of me that I cannot see that I cannot touch and that cannot touch me? I look down on my chest, because a chest only it is unfortunately, and all I see is the Lost Mary moving up and down slowly, covering “Chi” in “Chicago” and part of the bean. So no I am not scared. My lungs are under a warm cotton and flesh cover. By now, all is well.

Congo, children, mine, someone else’s. Them I also do not see, and reaching back to vision, which I regard the most powerful instrument in the machine of the “world”, I cannot simply stop doing something because there is a probability of something else, whether it be global social change (I studied the n, n-1 in social change theories, I know what I am saying, but yeah go vote or whatever), infertility, potential contortions of my o]springs... where are they?

Congo at least I can see on the map, but I don’t even know what I will be doing tomorrow why would I think about a child when my biggest problem right now is that I am not having sex regularly? And going back to the DRK, you first vote left and organize your community, then shit on me.

That brings me to my other point. Pleasure. Pleasure! I love feeling the teeny-tiny rush, that little scratch on the back of my throat, that little sting on my chapped split lip, that smooth cooling little piece of color in my hand. I am positive that if you have already completed and closed the self-sabotaging stage of your life where you dwell upon your own tragic fate and twist your mind over how much you are su]ering sitting in a ditch in a field when the sun is out, and you have stopped getting high on sadness, your answer to the question would you rather be happy or sad would be that the former. Therefore it is childishly simple to understand why I would rather choose to vape each second that I can and also those split moments that I cannot but still do, than not vape when I could be, celebrating my victory over another day in which I did not prematurely die.

I studied maximization and I read many maxims. I even met a couple Maxes! Maximizing experience of the present moment is the way to max on life. And I must charge for the energy transfusion to take place in proper terms. With the vape I charge. I see colors better when I am gladder, and I make the people who have stumbled upon me in their lifetimes happier when I too am so. Why would I want to bring people down? And that is why I hit that vape! I can hear the 5th instrumental layer on this Herbie Hancock 1971 live performance of “Toys” better because I was hitting my vape and would be appreciating it even more if this stupid piece of shit crap did not die. But thankfully tomorrow, I can reach true fulfillment thanks to the Tabacchi on Corso San Gottardo.

Adieu!111

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Comment

The title of the piece flashes in its US-American logic: the pursuit of happiness as the ultimate goal to life: and the author seems to cleverly point this façade out to us. It is tiresome to pursue happiness; it is enslaving; it is the most obscene type of labour. And if it’s done through cancer sticks it’s even worse: it costs money, it means timing social outings so that one can arrive at the tobacco store right in time before it closes, it involves begging when the filters run out and constantly moving, up and down the stairs, like the air up and down the lungs. Enslaving implies that there is a slave-maker: a physical, psychological, social addiction: the nicotine hijacking the reward systems of the brain, coping mechanisms for “happiness” – or maybe, the lack of “unhappiness”, such as stress, withdrawal symptoms, etc. –, the fear of losing one’s social habits. The medium? A vape.

All of this the author meticulously crafts into a short story that reminds of Didion’s prose with its sharp, precise expressions. I particularly enjoyed the use of punctuation and flow of speech, through which the author’s imagined voice echoed in my brain. On a deeper level, I believe that this piece (much like Solo para fumadores) effectively illustrates why people consume. It is a relationship that is secretive, intimate, full of contradictions and crooked utilitarian logic, as well as chaotic.

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