Congratulations Tzipora and Lahad!

Why I’m not lighting another cigarette: A monologue in one part.

I mentioned in my previous post that I stopped smoking a little while ago. This took a lot of courage; the change of lifestyle and fear of abruptly modifying long-standing habits is mighty intimidating. This is not an issue to be taken lightly – I’ve been smoking for my entire young adult life and did not remember what it was like not to smoke on a regular basis. The “habit of not smoking” was something attributed to my pre-teenage years. Yes, I’ve been smoking for that long. 10 cigarettes a day. A quick calculation brings up that I’ve smoked about 43,800 cigarettes. I’m writing this post to perhaps inspire others to stop smoking as well – hopefully the conclusions I have come to regarding smoking and the part it has taken in my life up until this point will strike a chord with those who feel similar .

The recurring question which I’ve been asked in the past few weeks has been “Why did you stop?“, from both smokers and non-smokers alike. My response to this, largely, was that it wasn’t stopping which required a reason or justification. I’d assume that one normally seeks reasons to forcefully justify something which otherwise would be considered a bad idea. I could not find one (one!) viable or justifiable reason to continue smoking, so I stopped. It’s not about why I stopped – it’s about why I’m not continuing.

I continued smoking for as long as I did, despite the health concerns, out of two reasons: enjoyment (disillusion) and habit (fear). I’ll break these down and explain both.

Enjoyment (disillusion)

Even after all these years of smoking, it was conceptually simple for me to realize that this enjoyment was, like a lot of other things are, chemicals in the brain. Once I understand that this “enjoyment” is linked to my body’s dependancy on nicotine, everything changes. “Do I do it because I like it or do I do it because my addiction to a drug is making me believe I like it?”. Those of you who know me are aware of how mortally afraid I am of chemicals which alter my behavior. I don’t just steer clear of class-A drugs; I drink very little alcohol and stay completely away from marijuana. The moment I realized that Nicotine was tricking me and altering my behavior to make me believe that something so horrifically damaging was “enjoyable”, I made the decision to stop smoking. There is no genuine enjoyment in smoking, only the feeling of relief which is achieved when a craving for a drug is satisfied. Nicotine is an addictive drug which controls you – NOT the other way around.

Habit (fear)

The habit of smoking is, for me, much stronger than the actual addiction to the drug. I picked up my first cigarette when I was 15 and started smoking more or less regularly when I was 16. Being 27, this means that I have been smoking so far for my entire adult life. There are no adult experiences I have gone though which hadn’t involved cigarettes in some way, shape or form. Relieving stress from work, going to coffee shops, having deep conversations – all of these involved cigarettes as a part of routine. Never lighting another cigarette means finding new ways of experiencing my day-to-day – and this is scary stuff, especially for people like me who enjoy the comfort of routine living (I look at it as “practice makes perfect”).

The way for me to deal with this issue was to identify these “habit” cigarettes and tackle them directly weeks before actually quitting smoking altogether. Weeks before I had completely stopped, I made a mental list of the cigarettes that weren’t “craving based” but “habit based”, and cut them slowly out of my routine. That cigarette on the way to work, that 2nd cigarette with a cup of coffee, that cigarette before bed – out. Cutting these out of my routine early helped me concentrate on dealing with the physical cravings after smoking that last cigarette, instead of trying to completely rebuild my life at the same time.

I think that the act of smoking as a nonsensical act really crystalized in my mind the moment I really realized that there was no real reason to smoke. There were truly no benefits to smoking – not one. The decision to not light another cigarette put me back in control and opened up my future to more than it would have otherwise been, both from a personal standpoint and in regards to my health.

I haven’t lit a cigarette in two weeks. Here’s what’s changed:

• My sense of smell has improved
• My face looks better, brighter
• I can breathe deeper
• There’s more money in my wallet
• I smell nicer
• My migraines are fewer, weaker
• I don’t have to air out the house before having guests
• I don’t have to air out the house after having guests
• I have proven to myself that *I* call the shots
• Gosh, I’m just more fun to be around! Who wants a hug?

But oh, does it hurt.

I can’t get away from this issue without mentioning withdrawal. This is an issue which is easy to forget in writing because I’m too ecstatic about quitting to bother remembering to mention how hard it is to actually do.

At the end of the second week, I’m not feeling as bad as I initially did – but the first few days were extremely difficult. I was feverish, irritable, was having trouble concentrating at work, suffered from headaches, nausea, abdominal pain and insomnia. Most of these problems have at this point subsided, however I am still waking up several times a night. This too shall pass.

I think that what helped me to not relapse during this phase of withdrawal was the understanding that I was exercising my right to be in control. Looking at other smokers and saying “gosh, I bet this person would have liked to be able to quit like I have.” instead of “hmm, I’d like a cigarette too”. As a matter of fact, I actually did the exact opposite of what all those quit-smoking articles suggest – I changed nothing about my surroundings, I continued to hang out with the exact same folks in social situations in which I used to smoke, I continued to take “smoke breaks” with co-workers (!!!) but did not smoke during them. Smoking is not something that they “get to do” and “I don’t” because I quit. Smoking is not a prize or a reward. There is no logic in saying “I deserve a cigarette” after completing a difficult or stressful task. This is like saying “I did something I am very proud of, therefor I will now go ahead and poison myself”

It all became considerably easier once I understood that I didn’t really want to smoke. Everything else pretty much followed.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

If you’re thinking of kicking the smoking habit, this book which you can read online may be a source of inspiration for you. It was for me. Good Luck!

…and now for something completely different (liron.de 2.0)

The Christmas holiday here in Germany has given me some time to sit down on my tuchus and get creative. Besides trying my hands in digital sculpting in ZBrush, I’ve also given this website a much needed redesign. I know that the previous version of this website had it’s fans (in the words of Lior: “If you redesign your website, I will have to kill you”), but after three years, it was time for a change. I wanted “simple pretty”. So here it is.

There are still some styling bugs here and there (especially if you’re browsing with Internet Explorer, which you shouldn’t, anyway), so please excuse the slightly unswept floor. Thanks a million to Mark and Matthias for helping me test and debug.

Besides the design, I’ve also rewritten the about page and I’m testing out a voicemail widget, so if you’d like to leave me a voice message you can do so on the contact page (flash required).

And for all the lovely folks who have been inquiring how the holiday season has been treating me, I leave you with this:

A spoonful of sugar

I love costume parties! They’re a good excuse to get creative and a good opportunity to experience the world as someone entirely different for a few hours. Costume parties tend to bring out the quirkiness in people. We need more of ‘em.

Here are some photos from last night’s movie-themed costume party. I’m the Mary Poppins. Can you spot the characters?

Showcasing your work: A departure from Deviantart

My journey with art and design on the internet started somewhat early. In 2001, I joined skinz.org, the then-bustling social network for designers. Needing more “room to breathe” on my non-digital works, I joined DeviantArt in January 2002, a small social network for artists and designers to showcase their traditional and digital works. During what I fondly nickname it’s “renaissance age” in 2004, DeviantArt was home to thousands of the web’s biggest and most talented names in design. This was back when the term “social network” hadn’t yet been coined.

Sometime in 2005, the term “Web 2.0″ started floating around the internet, and more young and upcoming artists sought the releases of the internet to promote their works. DeviantArt became huge, and it’s “work submitted in the last day” page turned into “work submitted in the last minute”.

And then came the influx of what I’d like to call “artrash”. Thousands upon thousands of pieces flooding the site depicting badly-drawn fanart and various instances of copyright infringement turned finding art and design works on DeviantArt into the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. I found myself logging in less throughout 2006. When I did, I found that the quality of feedback left on my work had dwindled into single-word comments. Their frequent server crashes had wiped a good portion of my downloadable works (photoshop brushes and icon packages) off their servers and with a recent hard drive crash of my own, I was unable to upload the works back onto the site.

At present in 2008, DeviantArt is the web’s largest and most successful art and design-based social network. I have 579 unread messages on DeviantArt, a sign that I need to either increase my involvement with the site, or leave it altogether. I’m debating the latter.

Throughout the years, DeviantArt has played an important role in my development as an artist. The feedback I received early on has helped me find my “weak points” and put the effort into my work where it matters most. DeviantArt has also done wonders for my self esteem. To date, my works have had 321,968 pageviews and my most popular work on DeviantArt (which I had to re-upload several times due to DevianArt’s server crashes) has been downloaded over 63,000 times.

All of this in mind, why would I want to leave the platform? It’s time for me to move on. Part of my new year’s resolutions for 2008 was to try and minimize my infatuation with beating dead horses, and this horse is so dead, that’s it’s been reincarnated into an emerald beetle and is living happily on the side of a tree in Brazilian rainforest.

I’m weighing my options, but it seems that I’ve comfortably settled myself at the Behance Network. I feel that the way Behance is built and it’s portfolio/project-based display ensures that the bar stays high – something I wish DeviantArt would have done in one way or another. An extraordinary amount of designers, animators, artists and photographers showcasing their work at Behance are mind-blowingly talented. I find myself browsing member’s portfolios on Behance for fun and inspiration, something I haven’t done at DeviantArt in a long, long time.

You can find my profile and works on my Behance profile page.

To my friends who work or have worked at DeviantArt, please understand that this is not personal. I admire the dedication to the DeviantArt community throughout the years and wish you well in your future endeavors.

A video tour of my toy collection

I’ve been collecting toys for a few years, both designer figurines and random toys I get as gifts or find in the toy store’s bargain bin. I keep most of my toys on this shelf in our work room.

A video tour of my toy collection from Liron Tocker on Vimeo.

Madness and mayhem at Lukas’ 20th.

Happy 20th birthday, Lukas! Photos here.

Warning: video is NSFW at 04:25.

Turning Japanese: and other gadget-related nonsense

I told Adam yesterday that I had been blogging in “spurts”. Sometimes, I bring in a few posts a week, sometimes I bring in a few posts a year. It looks like the latter definition of blogging in spurts has been affecting my blog more than the first, at least recently.

So, I got myself a new phone as a birthday present for myself (May 9th), the Nokia N95 8gb. Lots of fun! Massive screen, can connect to Wifi, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash (and macro mode!), 640×480 video with 30 frames per second. I’ve been using it to stream live to the web.

And if this wouldn’t have been enough, I picked up a Nintendo DS lite for myself about a month ago (in white). I am absolutely in love with it. Between breaks of playing Animal Crossing (my favorite for the DS by far), I’ve been playing Mario Kart DS and a bunch of mario and non-mario related games. My copy of Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends is on it’s way.

With all of this gadgetry, I’m feeling one step closer to being Japanese. Unfortunately, my new mobile doesn’t have a hook for a phone strap, which boots me out of the Japanese-wannabe-club almost immediately. My DS, however, does: