Measuring smoke.

Sir Walter Raleigh won a bet once by measuring smoke.

His friends scoffed when he said that he could, but there was no denying his method.

He weighed a cigar before it was smoked and then weighed it once he had finished it, along with the leftover pile of feathery gray ashes. He figured that the difference between the weight of the unsmoked cigar and the weight of the smoked cigar and the ashes would be a sound approximation of the weight of the smoke.

I've been thinking about the things that we lose along the way that can't be measured in tangible terms. Moments, memories, loves. And it's occured to me that they must be measured in a similar manner.

By measuring who we were before the loss and comparing that with who were are after the loss, we can safely calculate what and how much is missing from us.

In some cases, I don't even think that we're aware of all the parts of us until they go missing. Those parts must be x or y variable.