The pat-down is the same, just the inventory has changed. Left pocket, phone. Right pocket, keys and wallet. The third, phantom pocket check, the one that used to search for the hard outline of a pack and the familiar cylinder of a lighter, now searches for a different shape. A smooth, metallic weight. A small bottle that threatens to leak. The ghost limb of an old habit, now reanimated with new purpose.
It’s a frantic, silent prayer before leaving any room. Did I charge it? Is the pod full? The anxiety tastes different-less like burnt ash and more like sweet, synthetic mango and a low battery warning-but it’s the same old tune. I traded one warden for another and told myself it was an escape. We tell ourselves these stories to make the architecture of our new prisons feel like open fields. For 11 years, the system was simple: fire, paper, leaf. Now it’s ohms, watts, coils, and a liquid with a name like ‘Unicorn Tears’.
I sent a text message to the wrong person yesterday. A long, rambling thought meant for a close friend went to a professional acquaintance. The system worked perfectly. I typed the letters, I selected a recipient from a list, I hit send. The data packets flew through the ether and reassembled themselves on the correct device, just not the correct device for the context. The rules were followed to the letter, resulting in a complete and total failure of intent. My carefully constructed system of communication, with its unspoken rules and private channels, was breached not by a flaw in the technology, but by a momentary lapse in my own execution. It felt exactly like grabbing the vape after a stressful meeting, a motion so automatic I don’t even register the decision, only to realize the freedom I sought was just another set of instructions.
This is the core of the human condition. We crave freedom from the system, but what we really want is a better system.
One with rules we can agree with, with dependencies that feel less like a chain and more like an anchor.
I met an origami instructor once, a man named Adrian L. He had hands that looked like they were carved from old wood, and he could turn a flat, unassuming square of paper into something that looked like it could draw breath. He had over 341 different types of paper in his studio, each with a specific weight and texture for a specific fold. I watched him for an entire afternoon. He never improvised. He never broke the rules. He would make one fold, a perfect, sharp crease, and then unfold it. Then he’d make another. And another. For nearly an hour, it was just a sheet of paper with a strange grid of lines, a map of future possibilities.
He hadn’t been free from the rules; he had been freed by them.
We are all just trying to fold the paper of our lives into a more pleasing shape.
The narrative around quitting something is always one of liberation, a breaking of chains. But what really happens is a frantic search for a new set of chains that are slightly more comfortable. I see people online debating the merits of different vaping systems for hours. They discuss the throat hit of a 70/30 VG/PG blend versus a 50/50. They argue about the flavor notes in two different brands of blue raspberry. It’s a language as dense and arcane as any sommelier’s, a system of staggering complexity built around a simple delivery mechanism. I used to scoff at it. I told myself I wasn’t one of those people. My system was simple: buy a disposable, use it, throw it away. No maintenance, no jargon, no system.
But that, of course, is a lie. It’s the most demanding system of all. It requires constant acquisition. It creates more waste. And the search for a specific flavor, a particular brand that hits just right, becomes a quest in itself. The system is just obscured, outsourced. The mental load of coil-building is replaced by the logistical load of sourcing. It is a system built on the pretense of having no system. There’s a subtle genius to the designs now, making the dependency feel sleeker. You see someone with a modern vape, and it looks less like a piece of industrial hardware and more like a minimalist design object. It’s a prettier cage, but the door still locks from the outside.
I remember finding a receipt from my first attempt to quit smoking, around 11 years ago. The patches, the gum, the single session with a hypnotist-it came to $171. A hefty investment in freedom. It lasted 41 days. I failed because I tried to create a vacuum. I removed the old system and had nothing to put in its place. The unstructured time, the moments after a meal or the first coffee of the day, became chasms of anxiety. My brain, an obsessive architect, hated the empty lot. It immediately began rebuilding the old structure from memory.
This time, I didn’t demolish the building. I just changed the furniture. The five minutes I would have spent outside smoking are now five minutes spent scrolling on my phone while vaping. The hand-to-mouth motion is preserved. The ritual of starting and ending an activity with a chemical reward is intact. All I did was change the source code. I convinced myself I was a hacker who had broken the simulation, but in reality, I’m just a user who changed their avatar.