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Do I need to smoke?
Ellopos: Why do we smoke, really?
Introducing Allen Carr's, My experience of smoking
Page 4
Think again of our soldiers, think of governments that turned soldiers into junkies, think of the main cause of smoking’s popularity: what was the benefit for those soldiers, for the governments and for the war?
The benefit was the addiction itself. If the addiction was with heroin or any ‘tough’ drug, soldiers would be unable to fight. But cigarettes are so ‘innocent’! You can extinguish a cigarette instantly and do what you have to do. It kills you slowly... while you use it, it occupies you so gently... – the war will be over long before you find your body full of dirt and diseases.
This is then what governments did, knowing it or not: they took an addiction and made of it a life purpose, they gave to soldiers nicotine addiction as a quasi-meaning of their otherwise miserable war life! Suddenly their existence became somehow worthy, because they had the next cigarette to light and ‘enjoy’ the precious dose! I believe this is why so many smokers talk about their habit as a ‘comfort’ and a ‘company’. It is a temporary comfort to an emptiness it itself creates, and we transfer and use this sick satisfaction to the other activities of our life. Our life can have a better meaning and higher satisfactions and addictions than nicotine. Of course, smoke will not make you a better writer. If you really need smoke in order to write, to concentrate, be inspired, etc, you won't ever be a writer.
Cf. Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet | Plato, Whom are we talking to? | Kierkegaard, My work as an author | Emerson, Self-knowledge | Gibson - McRury, Discovering one's face | Emerson, We differ in art, not in wisdom | Joyce, Portrait of the Artist
