SDS: Gluttony

(The Devil’s Task: the Seven Deady Sins)

Have you ever smoked a clove?

I know; smoking is not a good thing. But cloves are one of my vices, enjoyed once or twice a week.

Hold the clove at the end between your first two fingers and thumb and draw it slowly under your nose. Breathe in – take your time, there is no rush – and taste the subtle sweetness. Now part your lips and let the end of it rest between them. Don’t light it yet – pull it away and lick your lips. This is deliberate – this is an act, a prayer at the altar of our senses.

Now light it. Watch the tip burn red, and if your clove is a Djarum Black like mine, watch the crimson tip burn down against the black. Draw in the smoke…you can practically feel yourself drawing the flame towards you, encouraging it to draw down the length of the clove.

Taste, smell, fire. Ahh.

We all know smoking is bad (even if you don’t inhale). It leads to decreased lung capacity and cancer. It can be fatal. But so many of us still do it. For many it is a nicotine addiction. For some it is habit. For a few it is an indulgence, and I am one to indulge.

Smoking isn’t the only dangerous vice we actively engage in as a species. Unprotected sex. Habitual infidelity. Driving fast. And yet we still throw ourselves head long into these activities, knowing the consequences (no intelligent person can truly claim ignorance). Humans are a foolhardy species, and yet, I like the fact that we are so intent on tasting the vigors of life. That we understand that experience is our way of knowing, that the markers in our life are made up of all the shivers and aches in the pleasure and pains of our lives; that the scars we have are often worn with some pride (including those garnered by the most cruel of circumstances).

Because they show we lived, and sometimes that is all we have to show.

My gluttony is the sin of decadence. It is in wanting more from life, requiring more from life. It is in taking from life. It is Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. It is Nikola Tesla and Lord Byron.

Be unafraid, be a bit foolish. Trace your steps between the lines of risk and certainty.