Lets talk about smoking (again. Its just something that intrigues me, really). Imagine a man, a chain smoker, if you will. Forty years of age, a French expatriate who picked up the habit from two decades ago while in the Army, not a day goes by without him emptying at least two packs of Marlboros. Yes, he is addicted. But why? Is it just the nicotine that we so often hear about, the substance that seems to have inherited humans' primal urge to tear things apart?
The thing about smoking is that it really doesn't present itself as an obstacle in everyday life. Not unless you are a lumberjack or perhaps a telephone operator who has to speak all day.
Smokers are, really, normal people -- just with cigarettes in their hands. It is popular to believe that smokers were all sucked in by the 'suave' or 'sex' factor, or that they are all victims of subliminal ciggy ads and product placement, or that the poor things are like magpies stuck in a cage, forever darting around inside the captive metal that is a cage, forever deluded by the concept of escape, of freedom. That all comes in handy when there's a need to assign blame, but there's more to it than just a cowboy tipping his hat at a lady with a lighted stick protruding from his rugged face.
Smoking is enjoyable. At least that's what I'm told.
Besides, it makes logical sense; why would you do something over and over and over again if you don't like to do it anyway? Hell, if intercourse was not a pleasurable experience, it would just be a means of procreation.
And then there were condoms. Go figure.
Imagine again, our Frenchman, being told one day that he has to stop smoking for whatever reason, say his house would be burned to the ground perhaps, and he agrees to stop smoking entirely. Besides, its good for his health isn't it?
Say he goes through with the whole thing, withdrawal, nicotine patches, nicotine gum, pain, the whole package. He suffers miserably, but he keeps his home and barely, just barely, his sanity.
What is an addict then to do? Live the rest of his miserable life forever longing for a cigarette? Poor chap enjoys them things.
Now he has to deal with not smoking. For someone who has done it for the better part of his life, i'd imagine not doing something would become a challenge. Waking up in the morning and not having his morning smoke. Writing his diary while chewing a rolled departmental store reciept to a pulp in his mouth. He should be happy, i mean he kicked smoking, right? But is he, really? Is he really healthier mentally?
I definitely am not telling anyone that smoking is good, or that you should smoke because it is enjoyable, but when you have found something that is so obviously pleasurable, even additively so, and were forced to give it up, what then is there?
*sidenote. call it nonsense, or whatever you want. I'm not typing this under the most conducive of environments and as such might make sense to lesser creatures such as moths or crickets, not to you and your expansive mind, but thanks for reading anyway.
Photo is taken from Flickr.com. Originally uploaded on August 6, 2008 by artzy.viva.
