Wanna quit smoking? Try this...

In between language classes and the agonizing hours I spend with my thesis proposal, I take time off to recover my sanity by reading the life story of Giacomo Casanova. Seducer, gambler, swindler, philosopher, and once a whore-paying priest-in-training, this man is supposedly the most notorious lover the West has ever known. I bought the condensed edition of his 12-volume autobiography after a visit last year to Venice, where Casanova was born, to get an idea of what Venice was like in the 1700s. The other day, barely halfway into the book, I came across an interesting quote from Yusuf Ali, an influential Turk he met during one of his travels, and it might just be the solution people who want to quit smoking have been looking for.

Once, after dinner, Yusuf aired his theory to Casanova:

"So listen. The principal pleasure of smoking consists in the sight of the smoke. You must never see it leaving the pipe, but only from the corner of your mouth, at exact intervals, never too often. So true is it that this is the principal pleasure, you will never see a blind man who enjoys smoking. Try smoking at night in a dark room, and a moment after lighting your pipe you will put it down."

Prior to this, I've been acquainted with quite a variety of quitting methods. Among them, one must put off the fire halfway into the cigarette and break the stick; the emphasis here is on the act of breaking the stick, which is supposed to have some psychological impact. One should suppress his/her smoking urge by chewing gum or by eating candy, or one must put on a nicotine patch, which seems to me the method that requires the least effort from the smoker. So far, what Yusuf said is the most original I've ever heard - that one should not look at the smoke so as not to derive pleasure from the act of smoking - and it's interesting because it came from a man who lived about 300 years ago.

If none of the modern-day methods seems to work, who knows, this one might just do the trick for you...