Café au lait in the plaza across from the Cathedral*
Strasbourg, France. April 2009. (large | flickr)
Vices | Week 2 | Tumblr 52 Weeks Thing
What are vices? I’ve been thinking about this all week. Even the dictionary, it seems, cannot decide where a vice falls on the scale of morality or habitualness. My conclusion is that a vice is a habitat that is detrimental to one’s well-being.
Coffee is a fond habit, but to me, it’s not a vice. It’s a ritual that makes my morning shift into gear. No other habits in my life come close to coffee, so it seems I think I haven’t any vices. (And sex, that other pleasure that has been mentioned as a potential vice, is certainly not detrimental to my well being.)
Oh, I’ve had bad habits that bordered on vice. A phase of passing out at the mercy of Jack & Cokes, hazy days in Humboldt. Somewhere though, not too far down the line, I walked away from all that self-destruction. I’d seen enough of it growing up. My dad had vices: chewing tobacco (which he started to stop smoking), a daily case of domestic beer, and later, I learned, speed. He had enough vices and the associated highs and lows and resulting erratic behavior to warn me that such addiction might live in my genes and to walk down that path too far might leave me sniffing the carpet for a palliative high like Jennifer Jason Leigh in Rush.
No thanks, I’ll keep my habits, and pass on the vices.
