SMOKE » Musings » The way of the leaf
The way of the leaf
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If I had my way, I would designate gas chambers for smokers. Take note, not a smoking lounge, but a gas chamber, an enclosed space devoid of comfort or style. I imagine a chamber with glass walls and ceilings for better visibility. That way, we, the nonsmokers, will see how smokers drown in their own smoke. After all, smokers deserve to get what they are looking for: a place where they can suck in all the bad air for themselves. They don’t have to share it with others.
All this talk of gas chambers makes me think that the woman who wrote this deserves her name – Tyrene – which sounds remarkably like a diminutive of “Tyrant.”
I don’t imagine that there is anything healthy about smoking. Smoking has always been – and always will be – purely hedonistic. And what is wrong with that? In a world where you can die at a moment’s notice from anyone of a million of different reasons, vectors, and causes, there can be nothing so heinous about the ten or so minutes you can spend simply smoking.
The Japanese understood the sublime pleasure that can be derived from observing or participating in the deliberate acts that comprise a ritual activity like chado or the tea ceremony. The movements center the mind, allowing it re-focus after having been buffeted by mundane worries and anxieties.
Smoking, I call tabakodo – or the way of the leaf – and it is no different.
First slide the cigarette from the pack and listen to the soft and gentle scraping sound of paper on paper. The bang and the clatter of the world slowly recedes into the background. Watch as the cigarettes left in the pack rearrange themselves to take up the void left by the one you pulled out. Little white circles, nestling against each other in solidarity – almost a zen garden in miniature.
Now feel the weight of the cigarette caught by the soft tips of your fingers, or snugly held between your forefinger and middlefinger. The slimness is sensuous - but no less so than the powerful eroticism of a thick cigar – and for the briefest moment causes a sensory flare where your bare skin touches the paper. It is probably cool to the touch now, but the coolness only whets your anticipation for the warmth that will follow. Already you are starting to forget the chaos that exists all around you, screaming for your attention but unable to penetrate the shell of serenity the smoking ritual is creating around you.
The first contact between the cigarette and your slightly parted lips makes your consciousness zero in on that moment. Your lips are erogenous, and the touch of the cigarette trips sensory circuits in your brain, telling you that you are about to indulge in a transient pleasure made only sweeter by the fact that it will not last forever. The world dissolves around you taking with it the worries and cares. You know that those problems haven’t really disappeared, but for a brief moment, they have stopped their bombardment. There is, in your mind, a peaceful silence dominated by the quiet sensation between your lips.
You bring the flame closer to end of the cigarette. Sometimes you watch it, sometimes you don’t. But everytime you light up, you are aware that a spark is being transferred to you. You inhale deeply, drawing the flame into the leaf and the comforting heat slides up into your mouth, down your throat, and into the center of your being.
The exhalation that follows brings a wave of relaxation that starts at the back of yourneck, moving to your shoulders, all the way down your back. Through repeated cycles of deep drags on the cigarette and long exhalations of smoke, muscles you had not realized were taut from tension suddenly release. Blood rushes into those muscles bringing oxygen to starved cells; washing away accumulations of lactic acid; and bringing a sense of lassitude.
Ever wonder why the first lesson in yoga, or karate, or any of the meditative arts is always about breathing? People forget to take deep breaths, especially in the midst of emotional, intellectual, and physical stress. They take short and shallow breaths that create an oxygen deficit in the blood and over-taxes the respiratory muscles to the point of spasm. All these distract the brain’s higher functions – almost reducing you to the level of subsistence consciousness: you are in a fight to keep on breathing.And so yogis and senseis and gurus all teach you to consciously breathe. To take long deep breaths and luxurious exhalations. Guess what smoking makes you do.
The deep breathing soon has it effect: all of a sudden, the jumbled chaos of your world seems more manageable. Connections you couldn’t see beofre seem to jump out at your relaxed mind; solutions that were elusive now sit up and beg for you to notice them; the right words to say come tumbling forward.
But it is not just the breathing that benefits you.
The lazy curl of the smoke provides visual relaxation as well. The wellness industry is just starting to realize the beneficial effects of a calming visual stimuli that smokers everywhere have enjoyed for decades. In a world dominated by flash-cut television delivering an endless stream of visions of bloody violence and death, balletic movement of up-curling smoke provides a visual vacation that allows you to recover your equanimity. And of course, the aromatic leaf works wonders with the scent of smoldering tobacco triggering a reaction deep in the limbic system of the brain – like a hotline to the centers of sexual arousal and pleasure there.
The bomabardment of pleasure stimuli smoking makes possible can hardly be equaled by other activities. Exercise, for instance, may stimulate the rush of endorphins, but it is prolly the very rare person who can derive any sort of relaxation from the smell of sweat. And while I have been told that it is possible to derive sensual pleasure from transcendental meditation, I have always suspected that it was probably just a frisky guru.
It is quite unfortunate that non-smokers do not give themselves the chance to enjoy smoking. There are psychological barriers there, that prohibit them from seeing smoking as anything other than a harmful activity. As Gaiman said, for those who chose not to believe in magic, magick simply does not exist.
As it does not for Tyrene. Instead, all she has is disdain for an alternative lifestyle she does not even fully understand. She speaks with barely concealed hatred for those who do not see things her way. Is she concerned for the health of the world? Hardly. She is miffed at things like having her shampooed hair messed up. And, where smokers have been shut out of 90% of establishments – nearly everything from restaurants to offices – and are prohibited from exercising what amounts to the freedom of expression on 100% of airplanes, she complains when smokers stake out a small patch of covered sidewalk or a corner of a balcony. Apparently, she has to stand next to where a smoker is minding his own business even when she has the whole stretch of sidewalk to stand on; apparently, everyone has to take her comfort into consideration while she unabashedly ignores the comfort of others. If smokers have to content themselves with small enclosed pockets of liberty indoors for the benefit of non-smokers, is it too much to expect non-smokers to respect the freedom of the great outdoors?
Oh and, she wishes death on smokers too, remember?
Death is the end of the journey for everyone; and everyone has the the freedom to experience that journey the way they want too. Hotels call it the courtesy of choice. I call it live and let live. But when faced with self-righteous little tyrants, it is far more satisfying to call it, SUCK IT UP, BITCH.
Romany Sedona, 20, is currently gainfully employed and on her way to earning an advanced university degree.
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Written by rom
Rom is a twenty-one year old experiment. She began life with the notion that she was a Filipino-Chinese Ilongga. Now, she just thinks of herself as Ilongga, having realized that she has failed at being Chinese. At least that's what her aku told her upon learning that she had fallen in love with a Filipino.
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I’ve always hated smoking even when I did it. It must be because I do not inhale.
Tyrene used to work where I used to work a long time ago:
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=106990
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Pretty selfish point of view, isn’t it? The only person who benefits from cigarettes are the smokers. How about the pregnant women? They cant do anything but hold their breaths when passing by uncaring smokers! How about those people who were diagnosed with bronchitis and asthma? Would you just let them find their own “spots” when the wind causes your euphoria (w/c is by the way their end) to them!
I say, each person should be responsible for what she chooses and should be mindful of others who choose otherwise. Our mother earth needs to be saved too. Smokers aren’t helping at all.
How about not passing close to smokers if it’s such an issue to you? And yeah, what’s wrong with expecting non-smokers to adjust to whoever was at a particular spot first. After all, if non-smokers were there first, most smokers tend to find the spot least likely to offend. Some just leave.
Now, in any set of individuals, there’s always a sub-set of assholes. There are asshole smokers who blow smoke you’re way when you cringe; and then there are asshole non-smokers like Tyrene – the bitch I wrote this piece in response to – who wish death on smokers. So, the way I see it, it’s pretty wrong to generalize from the behavior of one or two smokers, i.e., the smokers you know may be assholes, but we’re not all like that. some of us do respect pregnant women and sick individuals. The point is, our choice should be respected to.
I can’t believe this blog won an award. I got lung cancer because of second hand smoking, just like Christopher Reeve’s wife. How dare you promote smoking. It’s like killing innocent people! Thanks for people like you; My life is cut short because of the dirty air that surrounds me.
I am truly sorry that you have cancer. But that’s not my fault. Nor of people like me. Because people like me don’t smoke around people who don’t smoke. People like me put out their cigarettes when there are children and pregnant women anywhere near. People like me go out of our way to indulge in our habit as far away as possible from people who don’t smoke.
The people who gave you cancer with their second-hand smoke? They’re nothing like me.
“and are prohibited from exercising what amounts to the freedom of expression”
Awww.
No, not really.
One: Freedom of expression does not extend to, nor include the inhalation and exhalation of certain substances, regardless of location.
Two: An individual’s rights [yes, even smoking] ends where another’s begins. What I’m saying here is, you can do whatever you hell please as long as you don’t harm others or infringe on their own rights.
And yes, I smoke.
You smoke? That’s adorable.
One: freedom of expression is broader than your narrow definition of it; and
Two: Say rather, that if you see someone smoking and you don’t like it, steer clear; pretty much the same way smokers don’t light up in no-smoking zones.
Gail defined the freedom of expression just the way it is correctly defined. Check the Constitution. You are allowed to express yourself as long as you don’t harm other people’s well-being. Say, you are awfully angry at someone and you want to “express” your extreme disgust by hitting that person. Why do you think that person you hit can file a case of physical assault against you? Check the Constitution.
HAHA. Sige nga. Quote the consti to me, tanya. LMAO
Very convenient for non-smokers to condemn smokers when it doesn’t benefit them at all. So will it also be convenient for them if we take away their cars, do away with manufacturing plants that produce products they consume, coal-fired power plants that generates their electricity and other pollutants that are but necessary evils because it give us utilization and eases our way of life? Hypocracy is what it is, I’d say! Just learn to respect each other’s space and you’ll be fine. And yes, I do smoke cigs, (and the other herbal kind, too!). Life is short, carpe diem.
Sidewalks should be cigarette free. Tangama, cars are evil, but Pinoys don’t like what they look without cars, so…
Ortigas Center should do something about sidewalk smokers. From 6-8 PM in the evening you can hardly breathe along Emerald Avenue. Koreans, who are visibly afraid of the effects of smoking, seek refuge at Starbucks at this hour. You’d actually see them ducking into coffee shops like it’s raining.
@BrianB, hehehe, but they enjoy inhaling smoke from cars? What difference does a few inches between sidewalk and street make when it comes to smoke? Very puzzled by your logic…
@tangama where do you get the herbal stuff? I’ts hard to get that now in Baguio.
@anak, just grow it, suggest hydrophonics with lots of organic fertilizer…usok dude!
Since when did smoking become an art?! Apparently, this writer has her own little world like the little tyrant she attacked, Ad hominem-style.
“I am truly sorry that you have cancer. But that’s not my fault. Nor of people like me. Because people like me don’t smoke around people who don’t smoke. People like me put out their cigarettes when there are children and pregnant women anywhere near. People like me go out of our way to indulge in our habit as far away as possible from people who don’t smoke.
The people who gave you cancer with their second-hand smoke? They’re nothing like me.” – What makes this writer think they’re nothing like her when this essay is already proof she is no different from these smokers who smoke around people who don’t smoke/children/pregnant women?
“The lazy curl of the smoke provides visual relaxation as well.” – Ever heard of things called “clouds”??? They’re so much better to look at than those polluted breaths of smokers.
“The deep breathing soon has it effect: all of a sudden, the jumbled chaos of your world seems more manageable.”/”And of course, the aromatic leaf works wonders with the scent of smoldering tobacco triggering a reaction deep in the limbic system of the brain – like a hotline to the centers of sexual arousal and pleasure there.” – There’s also a scientific thing from which all physicians would classify this as “addiction” and the unmet “sucking” during infancy to toddler years. It’s the same thing as getting that arousal for your limbic system. Get your bio facts straight!
I am so ashamed for this win. Clearly, Blog Awards have missed a vital point in choosing a more deserving piece/entry. No stars for this one.
Oh great… Comment awaiting moderation. Blah. Talk about freedom of expression here.
Calm down, Faith. Here. Have a smoke. LOL
No thanks. I don’t smoke.
No thanks. I don’t smoke. Apparently, you didn’t catch on that before offering me.
ROFL. Apparently. LMAO.
Air circulates; smoke circulates.
Yes, apparently it does. Like your handle, Tanya.
That was brilliant! This is the first time I encountered a vivid description of the hedonistic delight one derives from smoking! I bet had you known this fact earlier, you could have had your first cigarette smoke inhalation at age 3 perhaps? The pleasure is so intense that you are still about to finish your first stick of cigarette you are lighting up your next and your next and your next…until it becomes the master of your soul and you cannot quit. “ROM is a twenty-one year old experiment.” Yeah right, but you came in very late, baby. You came in when the Surgeon General has declared “SMOKING KILLS”—an upgrade from “SMOKING MAYBE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.” You came in when the whole world is concerned about how clean the air it breathes. You came in when the whole world is talking about the environment, eco-system, global warming, and climate change. You came in when the whole world is dead shot in providing a livable EARTH for the next generations (because it’s the only one we’ve got anyway). “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide no escape from reality. Open your eyes look up to the skies and see. You’re just a poor girl. You need no sympathy…” So you think you are smart? You just can’t handle the TRUTH! It’s as simple as that, baby.
“You’re welcome to stay and engage me in conversation; you’re welcome to stay and disagree;” says ROMINA SEDONA. Now that’s what we call freedom of expression. Walk the talk, baby.
I love the reference to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Yea, but Romini smokes menthol.