Wonderfully written. If I have had too much caffeine I also look forward to the time when it burns off: "finally the tension on the harp strings eases, and one returns to the relaxed, meandering, simple-minded and cryptogamous life of the retired bourgeoisie."
Worth a read (5-10 minutes). I found myself agreeing more than disagreeing.
That aside, some gems:
“…Among certain weak natures, coffee produces only a kind of harmless congestion of the mind; instead of feeling animated, these people feel drowsy, and they say that coffee makes them sleep. Such individuals may have the legs of serfs and the stomachs of os- triches, but they are badly equipped for the work of thought.”
“If the experience of the English is typical, heavy tea-drinking will produce English moral philosophy, a tendency toward a pale complexion, hypocrisy and backbiting.”
reminds me of "Memoir from Antproof Case"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir_from_Antproof_Case
which wikipedia really does not describe well, as the plot really details the protagonist's life long war against coffee drinking, the following review handles that part better:
If you suffer from any kind of anxiety, and you drink caffeine, you should seriously consider quitting. Even if you only drink as little as one coffee per day. There's a very high chance that caffeine is the source of a large part of it.
I've been drinking coffee for 20 years and had always assumed that I was just an anxious, paranoid person. Quitting made me realize that I really wasn't.
Quitting/reducing has also cured my itchy skin problem.
I also highly recommend the subreddit r/decaf as a great source of information.
17 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 36.5 ms ] threadMiddle ages, things are a bit sleepy, dopey. Everybody is drinking beer all the time. progress runs at a slow pace.
Then there is this popular new tea sweeping the scene and boy howdy does it get you up and going. Now people are waking up and doing things.
Caffeine, It's a hell of a drug.
That aside, some gems:
“…Among certain weak natures, coffee produces only a kind of harmless congestion of the mind; instead of feeling animated, these people feel drowsy, and they say that coffee makes them sleep. Such individuals may have the legs of serfs and the stomachs of os- triches, but they are badly equipped for the work of thought.”
“If the experience of the English is typical, heavy tea-drinking will produce English moral philosophy, a tendency toward a pale complexion, hypocrisy and backbiting.”
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mod...
The part about coffee is halfway down the page under the heading §III — du café.
https://web.archive.org/web/20121008201138/https://www.nytim...
One day, I decided that I would quit, and what followed was around 8 days of the worst headache I have had in a long time.
Now, I wake full of energy and feeling sharp.
The smell of coffee makes me want one, but the dullness and headache are good deterrents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_English_Opiu...
I've been drinking coffee for 20 years and had always assumed that I was just an anxious, paranoid person. Quitting made me realize that I really wasn't.
Quitting/reducing has also cured my itchy skin problem.
I also highly recommend the subreddit r/decaf as a great source of information.
The first thing that came to mind was to become a coffee grower, farmer, producer or something with coffee.
Now I cant shake that thought!
There is a trickling, a grating, a stutter of cinders or light.
It catches my lungs, a breath of cinnamon.
I cough, as though I have swallowed coffee grounds.
The tea bag blessed with warm water lies there glistening
like birdseed in gauze in the colorless round of the pond.
It was as if someone had dropped a stone in a pond,
how your pupils used to expand. Or did the irises
shrink and expand, much as the flaming ring
on the stove does when I turn it down, then up?
Memory (I have poured the tea) blows on her hands.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0035.002/15?...