Playing Prometheus

I spent a lot of time in my mother’s clinic while growing up. Surrounded by pamphlets and posters about what was good for my health and what was not. It wasn’t long before I started to take some of those flyers very seriously. I clearly remember the one that had an illustration of the Grim Reaper taking shape at the end of a lit cigarette in the form of smoke, and written underneath it in bloody red letters were the words, "Smoking Kills!" How could I not pay attention? These were obviously matters that spelled the difference between life and death.

All around me were campaign ads about how smoking was bad for my heart, lungs, blood vessels and so on and so forth. The universal "no smoking" sign even appealed to me, and for the longest time I thought it was one of the hippest designs around. Long before the Yosi Kadiri campaign I was already a staunch anti-smoking activist of sorts. The sight of anyone who smoked offended me, and I would be on the prowl for guests who lit up in and around our house. When I did find them, I would ask them to "kill" their cigarettes, letting them know I was upset about their smoking by the contempt in my voice and the disapproving expression on my face. "Smoking is not allowed in this house," I would say, reminding them that my mother was a cardiologist. I absolutely detested cigarettes and believed that smoking was such an evil practice. It even came to the point that I believed that anyone who smoked must be evil. After all, the devil figure in the horror movies I watched was always surrounded by clouds of smoke. I was six years old at the time, obsessed at being an efficient "anti-smoking secret agent." The logical progression would be for me not to pick up the habit, ever.

Fast forward to the fifth grade, it was then that I first blazed. My good friend Frank asked me if I wanted to smoke "fake" cigarettes, I said yes. Up until now I don’t know where he got the idea that we smoke, but I figured that it would be ok, believing that only real cigarettes killed. We hiked into the forest behind his house armed with Lipton tea bags, sheets of bond paper, Elmer’s glue, cotton, and a box of matches. Frank masterfully rolled some sticks and we lit up. The idea of inhaling was alien to both of us at that time, so we didn’t, but we did enjoy striking poses with our cigs, like the Marlboro men that we saw in ads, or like those gangsters in the movies. For the first time in my life I actually thought, "Hey, this is pretty cool," but it wasn’t enough for me to change my stand on real smoking and real cigarettes. Since that day I had the occasional puff from a Hope or Philip with the bad boys from our class, but that was mostly for show. I still didn’t like the idea of smoking and I wouldn’t entertain the thought of smoking until many years later.

By then I was 16, and I remember it well. I decided to buy myself a pack of cigarettes to find out for myself what smoking was really like. No peer pressure, I just wanted to come face to face with something that I loathed. I can still smell the sweet aroma of that freshly opened pack of Marlboro Mediums, and as I pulled out a stick I remembered the Grim Reaper from my childhood. There was death, and I was holding him between my fingertips. Undaunted, I set him on fire, and I liked it.

What is it that draws people to smoke and has them coming back for more? True, there are substances in cigarettes that make them addicting, but such a simple answer doesn’t quite cut it. Ask any smoker why he does it and you will get a whole range of replies, from the philosophical to the silly. Tom Robbins, in Still Life With Woodpecker says:

Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can get with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is the embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It’s not the tobacco we are after but the fire. When we smoke we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as the lightning.

Does that mean that chain smokers are religious fanatics? You must admit there’s a similarity.

The lung of the smoker is a naked virgin thrown as sacrifice into the godfire.

For some, smoking is a reaffirmation of life, for others it may be a milder way of testing ones mortality — an extreme sport fraught with danger. When I think about it hard enough, the tricky thing about smoking is staying in control; about testing one’s limits. For me, a "not more than 10 sticks a day smoker," this is what it’s all about.