Theory #4: Simultaneous Organ Collapse Theory

A lot of people have made a point of highlighting how tragic it is that so many people willingly choose to smoke when science has proven that smoking cigarettes takes 12 years, on average, off the smokers’ lives.

While I won’t argue that, I think it is even more tragic to bear the thought that some of those smokers probably don’t drink. There are few things more depressing than the failed logic of the tea-totaling smoker. If you know any such lost soul, please introduce him/her to my highly controversial and largely overrated “simultaneous organ collapse theory”.

One day many lifetimes ago, while trying to rationalize my own personal life choices, I scribbled the following notes:

“Simultaneous Organ Collapse Theory

Premise

1) Life kills you. Once your body stops growing, all of your organs gradually start to deteriorate. Eventually, barring external factors like a car accident or an axe murder, one part of your body just deteriorates enough that you die.

2) Often, the things that you find most enjoyable are the ones that are killing you the fastest. Drugs, alcohol, sex, food with flavour, etc. There is usually an inverse relationship between whether something is good for you and whether you actually want it.

3) Different pleasures attack different parts of your body. Smoking kills the lungs, alcohol predominantly focuses on the liver, salty food or being a Cubs fan hits your blood pressure and
your heart, etc.

4) If you smoke a lot but avoid alcohol and salty foods, your lungs will likely give out leaving you with a relatively healthier liver and lots of other healthy (or less sick) organs that smoking doesn’t affect (or affects less). You have stopped using your organs without getting all of the enjoyment out of them that you could have. You have wasted a part of your ‘life enjoyment potential’ ©.

5) When external factors do kill you, like a skydiving accident or a bullfight gone horribly wrong, you can’t avoid having wasted some of your ‘life enjoyment potential’ ©. You can only hope that, although life was short, you got as much enjoyment out of it as you could in the time that you had.”

Note: I edited these for the purpose of making them better

And so I give you Theory #4 in the Book of Mark:

In order for a person to optimize their enjoyment in life, that person should get maximum use out of all of their organs. In fact, the ideal scenario would involve living a wonderful life, getting every last ounce of good health out of all of your organs, then having all them collapse simultaneously, not having wasted a second of any of them.

Obviously it is impossible to time something like this, and you can kill yourself faster by trying to do it. The theory itself isn’t meant to encourage you to smoke or drink (unless you already smoke or drink enough that it wouldn’t make a difference). In reality, smoking actually causes about 20 different things that kill you. (Note: I looked it up and it was a good guess – see here).

It’s also impossible to measure enjoyment from life. Every time you speed up in your car you are taking a risk, every time you cut through the alley, or every time you trust someone that you don’t know all that well. We all have to draw our own lines, and you can use it to justify any lifestyle you want, provided you are being consistent in your approach towards life. The way you can go wrong is being inconsistent. If you want to prolong life through great discipline and a healthy lifestyle, don’t revolt from your own choices and take stupid chances. If you want to take stupid chances, accept the consequences of your choice.

You are mortal, and each breath you take or decision in life compounds that point. My body isn’t a temple; it’s a wondrous coupon book that doesn’t tell me the expiry date. The trick is to maximize value of your coupons and waste as little enjoyment as possible.

Just don’t forget, when one coupon expires, they all do.

I should also point out that a lot of people think smoking is also really bad for your liver. That is just another reason why I quit a while back and now I only do it when I am really, really drunk.