Dear younger smoking self–
Your father smoked all your life, and for most of the time you never really thought much of it. It didn’t seem cool, it didn’t seem uncool. You saw your grandpa smoking, and you saw movie stars smoking, and you saw old, decrepit uncles at the coffee shop smoking. So you had no illusions that smoking was cool.
The smell did smell of home, and you would later rationalize that smoking made you feel comfortable and reminded you of home, but it’s not like you started smoking because of that.
You started smoking partially because you were hanging out with smokers. But that can’t be the whole story, because you had friends who hung out with you who didn’t start smoking.
You started smoking partially because you were sort of curious, maybe. You had an opportunity to give it a try, and you figured why not. You started smoking partially because you were sort of bored. Partially because you felt like it couldn’t be all that bad, and that you’d be able to stop whenever you wanted to. The notion that something that you put to your mouth and set on fire is something you’d be compelled to do over and over again your will seemed silly. How does that even work? You were kinda curious about that, maybe.
The thing about smoking is that for some period of time, it gets more enjoyable the more you do it. The first few cigarettes are sorta icky, they have that metallic taste and they scissor your lungs with their sharpness. It takes a few cigarettes before you really start enjoying it. So you kept going.
Initially, you thought you’d be fine as long as you didn’t buy your own pack. You’d merely bum cigarettes from others. And lonely smokers are always happy to give away cigarettes to turn their solitary smoke breaks into social ones, especially with people who hadn’t quite started smoking yet. What you didn’t realize is that once this starts happening for an extended period of time, you start feeling indebted. You know that cigarettes cost money, and you essentially owe those of your friends who you kept bumming cigarettes from. And so you’d buy them packs from time to time.
And then you buy your first pack. I can’t quite remember what yours was. Maybe it was Viceroy Menthol. Maybe it was Dunhill Reds (that… seems less likely? Although it would eventually become your mainstay. Of sorts.)
You got another person to start smoking– Sampoerna, and he smoked nearly 7 sticks one after another. By smoking around your other friends, you encouraged everyone to keep smoking, and to make it a cornerstone habit that they built their lives around. You spent probably several thousand dollars on it.
I’m not sure if any of that bothers you. You did kinda know that was what you were getting yourself into. You did see adult smokers puffing away and you thought that you would quit if it ever got too bad to handle. And hey, you do quit eventually, at 24 years of age. I’d say that was a pretty alright run.
I guess the most important thing that you should be thinking about is– When you look back on your life, did those moments seem particularly meaningful? For some period of time you told yourself that smoking was poignant and meaningful- I’m sure you’ve actually written blogposts about that. What were your favorite and most memorable cigarettes?
I remember one at 2am in the morning outside of your parent’s house. It was a menthol cigarette, and you found it very contemplative. You were looking at the hibiscus flowers and paying attention to the stillness of the night- somebody was watching TV somewhere. All of that really felt good to you. I think you’d like more of such moments- another was when you and your wife had just bought your home and she was resting her head on your thigh. Not sure if you were smoking then, but on hindsight the smoking isn’t that important. There was a more recent moment when you were lying on your sofa, staring out the window meditating. Another- when you were lying on the back of a truck during your National Service, looking at the trees. Smoking in the back of a tonner. There are many cigarette memories with NS. Smoking at the back of a Penguin fastcraft on the day that you ORD’d, and on many other days. Smoking after the urban ops segment. Smoking in Penang, and Bangkok.
I might be rationalizing here, and shoehorning a narrative that I think is appropriate now, but I think smoking meant so much to you because it was something you could seemingly control. You lit the cigarette. You inhaled it as you pleased- deep, slow drags, or quick, sharp drags. However you liked. You could exhale as you like. Smoking a cigarette can be an activity with a remarkable amount of flow, and something “gets done”. I wonder how that relates to the fact that you used to bite your nails, and you haven’t since. Why you like to play video games. It’s all about the dopamine, isn’t it? The illusion that things get done, some sort of accomplishment. How do you accomplish more things, within the set of things that you care about? What are the things that scare and confuse you, and how can you get those done because those things mean the most to you, and would leave you the happiest after they’re done?
In the almost grand scheme of things, it’s not really that big a deal that you smoked for about 8 years. I suppose what would be interesting is to know if you’re going to stay smoke free for the remainder of your life. You know that individual cigarettes aren’t really worth the hassle, unless maybe you’ve been drinking a lot. But will you pick up smoking again later in your life? Maybe. I don’t want to get too caught up in enforcing your identity- it makes more sense to keep your identity small.
But here’s the bet though- you’re going to avoid smoking because it messes with your head, it messes with your clarity of mind, it makes you groggy and tired, it makes you cough. There are other ways to get pleasure, including writing, running, all sorts of good stuff. You’d want to stick around to see what the future brings, because it’s going to be goddamn interesting.
But hey, I ain’t judging. Just do the best you can.