Smoking sub-take 3-HST-take 1

[Patti]

I appreciate your persistence.

To answer some of your questions, your subconscious does not exist to keep you safe. That's your conscious. The subconscious must be regulated and protected in some ways by the conscious. That's why we have one: it allows us to prevent certain garbage from being accepted by the subconscious. The subconscious will believe anything you tell it, as long as it does not have contradictory prior programming. Then, it will believe whatever has the greatest impact. Usually this will be something with a lot of repetitions, or something with a lot of fear associated with it. Emotional trauma, which is given high priority in order to help keep us alive.

As you are seeing, you have a level of fear that is associated with quitting. This fear is what's making the repetitions and the efforts have to be so extreme. I don't know why you're so afraid, but then, fear isn't rational. Fear can make no sense at all, and still exist quite happily.

The subconscious does what it believes you want it to do. But the program telling it what you want it to do is only as rational as the information it has to go on, which is the function of the conscious mind. Preventing bad things from getting in, and thinking logically. As you can see by yourself and those of us around you, it doesn't always get that part right. If it did, none of us would have these issues.

As for whether your subconscious knew it was "right" or "okay", consider these two facts. First, it is the control center for your body, so yes, it knows that nicotine is poison. But, it is absolutely literal. It will believe, and do, ANYTHING it thinks you want it to do. And to know what that is, it gathers information from everything your conscious mind doesn't out and out reject.

Such as billboards, signs, movies, magazines, and people you encounter.

Remember that it is repetition that is most likely to create that subconscious program you're running. And repetition can happen without the conscious you knowing it, because the conscious mind ignores repetition in search of an active threat. Repeated things are ignored unless they are an active, immediate threat. That's how they get into the subconscious, and how they become your subconscious programming. That is why advertising is based so much on psychology and repetition.

As for why kids are still starting to smoke, it can be accounted for by stupidity. They know it's bad, but they don't believe it, because "that only happens to other people", and "just one/one more won't hurt". It's never the facts they face, or the reality long term. It's a moment of illusory pleasure now, and kids are just not smart enough to get it that every smoker starts the same way they did, and walks the exact same path. It's more important to be "cool", "in", or whatever other idiotic reason they can think of.

Today I asked a guy I'll be working with to mass market the SSF-6.0-H sub why he smoked. (He smoked for 6 months in Europe, and then just quit on a whim when he got back here to the states.) He said, "To get a buzz?" And in the end, he had to change the subject by trying to bring references to how the government is screwing up into the argument because there is no sane, logical reason why anyone smokes.

In my interviews, I see the same pattern, over and over and over again. The younger ones are still convinced they enjoy it. Or that it's worth the "risk" to be cool, or have the illusion of pleasure or comfort. The older ones progressively become more and more likely to be more and more desperate to quit, because now, they get it. Now, they see the truth. Now the see what's behind Curtain #1, and they don't like it.

I think it's just natural human stupidity, really. People, smokers and nonsmokers, tend to have very poor ability to prioritize effectively when it comes to long term. The future doesn't exist, so why worry about it? Why should it matter if they trade 5 or 10 or 20 years of their lives for the "pleasure" of smoking now? Of course that doesn't take into account the degradation and damage that it does to their bodies over time, and the effects of that degradation and damage, and that's not considered until it's already started.

In general... humans are not very smart. Our heyday is past. We are no longer forced to live or die in the moment by our decisions, so we are becoming careless with them. We are not designed to worry about 20 or 40 years from now.

Most of the world is still of the opinion that the United States had of smoking 50 or 60 years ago. In India, I am told, they smoke to be perceived as "high class". Europe seems to have a similar mindset, as does China, and I am sure other countries as well. Toss in the greed of the people making money on smokers as cash cows and the willingness to mindfuck them with faulty information, from every source possible, which makes it harder to quit... and you have where we are.

Kids getting addicted because it's cool, just like the generation before them, and the one before them, and...

It doesn't make sense because, well, it doesn't make sense. It takes maturity to see the things that make you ask that question, and maturity comes from the one thing kids and young people cannot possibly have: painful experience.

Just keep going with it. I suggest perhaps taking one day off the sub and seeing how you feel when you do.

By the way, please don't take offense to anything I have said. No offense is intended.

No offense, all is true.

I wanted to let you know that I took your advice and saw my doctor who is running tests from head to toe. So I should know if anything else is going on by the end of August.

Also wanted to mention this. Not sure if it’s because of the sub, but my youngest son who started smoking black and milds the end of senior year (eye rollage), doesn’t seem to be smoking them anymore. For some reason, he feels the need to sleep on the family room couch instead of his room, right under my laptop playing the SS sub. I’m not sure that he has stopped but he hasn’t smoked around the house. I don’t want to bring it up and ask but I thought it was interesting.

Last night was the second with earphones all night. I think I actually slept better which could possibly be because I have it loud enough to hear static and it’s somewhat like white noise. The interesting thing I noticed is that if I plug the earphones into the ipod player I hear static, but if I plug them directly into the ipod, I hear nothing. Any thoughts as to why that might be?