Coffee and Cigarrettes

Coffee and cigarettes.  These are drugs.  And boy, are they wonderful.

I find myself enjoying these things more and more.  To the point where I am becoming a snob about them.  To the point where if I am not careful, they will become a crutch.

"Virtue consists, no in the abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it."

What am I really desiring?  Do I want to feel like an old man, weathered and tempered in the difficulties of the world, using these classical drugs to shrug off the contemporary stress of the world?  Do I want to stroke the side of my personality that needs to strike at the tenets of "Classical Manliness".

I suppose that the answer is in the question.  One may say that desire is the root of all evil, and when someone does anything and everything to fulfill that desire, they are truly evil.  One may also say that without desire, and the fulfillment therein, no one will truly feel the complete satisfaction of obtaining something.

In the concrete world, coffee and cigarettes are merely stimulants that do wonderful things to the human brain.  In the abstract, they are devices through which an individual can facilitate their desires.  In and of themselves, they are nothing more than tools through which to seek a desire.  Or a virtue.

In the end, it all boils down to control.  Do I control my desires?  Do I control the tools that are placed in front of me?  Do I control my own mind, and mastery of my own body?  I don't know.  I'm gonna drink some coffee and smoke a cigarette, and think about it a bit.