Smoking – is it ever right?

They will try to seduce you into wanting to look like the hollow eyed skeletal super model on the cigarette poster, who wouldn’t dare to really smoke because she knows what it could do to her skin and teeth, and how it could potentially bring her fabulous modeling career to a crashing halt. She will stick to chewing gum off camera, thank you. And only chewing gum please, because she doesn’t eat anything she would need to swallow. But will you still get suckered into wanting some of the ‘I’m so fucked up and I know it’ look? You know the sulky, pouty, under-aged and under-nourished, but oh so glamorous appearance.

The media sends us conflicting signals; images of beautiful and successful people, from cowboys to celebrities, on advertising posters encouraging you to pick up the cancer stick, while moms, dads, teachers and other authoritative and judicious figures wag their fingers in your face forbidding you. In our ever more health conscious world, smoking is banned in most places and wholesome trends like ‘yoga’ and ‘organic foods’ have overtaken in popularity; giving those cigarette manufacturers a good lung-cleansing run for their money. Moreover, as the smart new generation carves out alternative means of defining ‘cool’, smokers and their cigarettes get about as much respect today as the mullet haircut.

Smoking kills. No two words better describe it. But as we march forward towards the possibility of a cigarette-free planet, we turn our heads for a quick glance back, and ponder if we really want to entirely and eternally leave behind man’s quirky little habit of inhaling the green, leafy plant from its slim paper roll; and we wonder if there might in fact be a circumstance when we might in full awareness and with utmost certainty, want to take that one more long, muscle relaxing, stress diffusing and tension releasing drag again.

There are a certain few circumstances when the potential harm caused by a cigarette pales next to the magnitude of the emotional and stress release it can provide. It is the minor coping mechanism that sometimes saves the day. Have a cigarette before you go into your boss’s office and tell him what an asshole you really think he is. One puff before calling off the thirty-year marriage based on lies and infidelity. Just one last inhale before you lie down on the rail tracks. That’d be long enough to change anyone’s mind!

But in the devastating moments, cigarettes do more than buy you time. As you contemplate a dilemma or just cognitively digest an impressionable new reality, the very act of sucking on something is so primal, it is comforting, akin to a baby feeding on the ample breast of his nurturing mother. When you see a boob in place of a cigarette at the lips of the next person you see inhale, try not to break into hysteric laughter.

Smoking also gives us something to do with our hands. Unless you are chugging your beer or busy texting your late friends, you are most likely to be found with cigarette in hand, when standing at a bar. The super cool ones are doing all three at once. Despite the sweeping new ‘health’ trends, the ‘bar’ is such a place where man will do the most idiotic of things. He will still pay thrice as much for a pack and tip the thieves, just to mimic the panache of Mr. Marlboro.

And a slim little cigarette sufficiently occupies only two fingers and a pair of lips, so that you can use the rest of you to ‘multitask’ when needed, a skill that has become second nature in most of us today. Don’t some of us in fact get restless if we’re not doing six things at once? We live in world of multi-sensory experiences. We talk while we eat, listen to music while we work, and watch television as we shed calories on the treadmill. Sure let’s light one up, while you’re flicking through pages of Playboy attempting to get ‘Jhonny’ off in the dim and cozy privacy of your own den. Let’s just hope Jhonny keeps getting the good hand.

Smoking also brings people together. What a neat little icebreaker! “Excuse me, do you have a light?” You could find your next spouse as you contemplate ending your failed marriage with the first. Smoking is the perfect excuse to leave your desk at work, at least every other hour, and so much better than “I have to pee”. In most cases you get to step right outside the building, and take in a breath of ‘fresh air’ before you start staining yourself.

You can chat up the leggy secretary as you both indulge in the subconscious fetal drive. If you’re lucky enough to run into your boss in the smokers lounge on a good day, you can have the meeting before the meeting, and be privy to career altering information without having to jump into bed with them. A cigarette can do a lot, if put to work correctly.

The quiet and mysterious types tend to find it useful for reflection and introspection – something we should all do a little more of every day.
“What are you doing in this corner all alone Jim? Cigarette break?”
“No actually, I’m meditating. This just helps keep everyone else away, so I can do it peacefully.”

Another ironic little use of the cigarette is to help make it well extinct. I once read about one parent who had caught his teenage child smoking and was so determined for him not to pick up this filthy habit, that he used ‘reverse psychology’ by handing the child a full packet of cigarettes and instructing him to smoke it all in one go, within a confined space – ‘Aha! That ought to put him off for life!’ thought the benevolent parent. Hopefully that kid grew up hating cigarettes, and not dad!

And what about those people who smoke just because they’re bored? Just “for the heck of it!” No problems in life, no stress, no anxiety, no drama at work, nor financial crisis, and relationships so stable, they keep forgetting the other person is there. Nothing life shattering ever happens in their humdrum lives. What about them? How do they make the hours, the days go? Cigarettes are the ‘fillers’ for them – an inlay for all the moments between the rare stimulating ones in their lives.

When your life is on either end of the spectrum, too perfect, or too messed up, there comes a vacancy in your soul. Sometimes, vices like smoking fill this void. Through the seconds and minutes of their lives, they search for it’s meaning in the cloud of black smoke they exhale. Hopefully the next dramatic moment they experience does not show up as a lung x-ray in a doctor’s office.

Having uncovered the many nuances of this age-old habit, the motives and reasons, some more subtle than others, it makes me wonder if we are really ready to give it up just yet. Are we prepared? What will we tell ourselves and resort to when we impulsively reach out for one in the middle of a heated debate? What about those who reach out compulsively – no chewing gum is going to fully appease their nicotine craving. Do we just tell them to ‘bite their nails’ instead? And how will we meet new people, introspect, or masturbate with adequate confidence? In a world without our precious ‘ciggies’, as we so affectionately call them, how else will we ‘Come to where the flavor is’?

Prepare to blog!

As I sit here, a little excited, a little lost, I am caught in the middle of a familiar conflict of desire and resistance. I just read somewhere that a ‘writer’s block’ is a form of procrastination that can be used as a time for rehearsal, where you can map out in your mind what you want to write, and segment it into neat sections. But I can’t imagine coming up with an entire story plot, when I’m still struggling with selecting a simple topic.

I just spent twenty minutes looking through a book called the ‘idea catcher’ to find a subject that appeals to me, that will bring a rush of excitement and eagerness for me to embark upon my next piece of creative prose, but alas, I have nothing.

Then I decided to simply write from intuition. Hang out on the page, let my fingers do the typing, and see what happens. Fifteen long minutes into tapping the keyboard and staring at the blank screen, I accepted that this technique was also not working. So I decided that in order to get over my feeling of being ‘stuck’, maybe it’s exactly what I should write about. Try to get it on paper, so I can better understand it, and hopefully get rid of it.

Even after a number of years of pursuing the craft through various professions, I still feel like I have only attempted to write, and not yet done the real thing. You are only as good as your last piece of work, and the itch to create something outstanding keeps returning. One of my creative directors at an ad agency amusingly related to this and said that a young writer usually dreads that they are not good enough, and they fear that that the world has just not picked up on it yet, but that they will one day ‘get caught’. I am told it is this very fear that makes them stretch and reach for more, and what eventually accounts for excellent writing.

A few minutes ago, I closed my eyes and took myself to my moments of high as a writer; working on a college essay, a client brief, a conference speech, and a poem for a loved one. I recalled during the experience of writing these, how engrossed and absorbed I had been, how I’d relished the thrill of the creative process; especially as the drafts would come together after much deliberation and shaping.

I’ve had my little accomplishments, but I realize most of them were deadline driven, and pending the approval of someone else. Could I not muster up that energy and drive to create something just as good for myself, or just for the experience? Was I so dependent on an anxious audience, sweaty palms and a little adrenalin flow to help me write?

After deeper introspection, I wondered if it was my desire to create to the high standards I felt I was capable of, that was choking me up. I’d be eager and excited to start a new piece, but I’d go numb and blank just before I could start. Was I choosing to be a harsh critic over a fluid writer? So I became conscious of, and reasoned with the monkey on my back. But even after it had promised to behave and not interfere with my creative process, it was hard to get that wrist moving.

Could it be that I just had nothing to write about? I was sure that wasn’t it, because I bet if a friend told me they were stuck and didn’t know what to write about, I could fill a few pages of ideas and suggestions for them. Why then was I unable to just pick one and flow with it myself?

During my initial research, there were a couple of topics that made me pause and consider, but nothing brought that fire in the belly. I hadn’t found anything I felt compelled enough to write about. I required an intimate and inspiring subject, something precious and close to heart, that would get my pen racing across the page.

I hadn’t started writing yet because I wanted so much more from the occasion. I didn’t want to endeavor a formulaic piece of prose. I wanted to find that story within, wanting to be written with a sense of urgency. I longed to be briskly swept into its exciting and sensual journey. The writing experience I sought was to overflow, spilling colorful characters, vibrant images and intense emotions onto the page, instead of having to force them out from somewhere within me.

Exhaling deeply, having expressed this overwhelming desire, I flicked open the book in front of me to a random page, where I happened upon the following Zen-like wisdom: ‘The writer must not write in order to write. To write quickly, you must write slowly.’ Feeling right on track and right on time, I smiled satisfactorily at my ‘perfect ending’ and excused myself for my first coffee break.