Coke is not for drinking now! a WARNING

The newspapers aren't my only source of information but quite often they confirm something that has started to give concern.  Yesterday there was an article, a brave article by Lucy Cavendish about the trend amongst well heeled 40 year olds to not only use cocaine but do it openly, a sort of acknowledged sharing.  What struck me most was that the young women interviewed who said that it relieved her of the boredom of being "just a wife and mother".

There seem to be lots of them don't there.

So, thinking on…. In the little summer house where I meditate, there is a big box full of matches to light a candle in the darker afternoons.  I notice that when there are masses of matches, I don't mind how many I use, I might be a bit careless with one, not striking it properly and wasting it.  Some might fall out and I just scoop them back, not particularly looking for the few which might have fallen on the floor.  But, when there are only a few left and you haven't got any in the house, you are more careful.  This Swan Vestas observation points out how many things I don't value because I don't have to, I certainly don't think that matches everywhere might suddenly be in short supply and that I will be without the warmth and light they insure that I take for granted.  

When a 40 year old, bored perhaps of the ordinariness of life, snorts a line of cocaine, clearly they aren't thinking that the money they have spent on it is going to run out or even that their own health is likely to suffer.  Doctors say that the stress of snorting cocaine, your first line or your 1000th, puts a potentially lethal strain on your heart and that in the A and E department of St Mary's Paddington, so close to Notting Hill and the smart part of London,  as many as one in ten of the patients complaining of chest pain over a three year period, tested positive for cocaine.

So, Grannies everywhere, remind your 40 year old that their life is precious, that the money they earn is for bread for families, both their own and perhaps families in deprived areas.   Tell them about the time that Coke came in cans and its only danger was that it could rot your teeth and tell them too that however boring and hard the looking after children seems to be, they have the most important job, far more important than working in the city as a lawyer or a trader, their example will be the most important influence on their children.  Meditating might be a bridge too far if coke is your bag, but meditating even on the goodness of every day, might help kick some of the awful habits we have allowed to take root.