Pleasure is dualistic in nature. As animals, we are naturally geared to seek out pleasure. And as humans, we have the intellectual capacity to recognize that pleasure is often accompanied by its counterpart, pain. Pain evinces itself through physical and mental attributes such as unhealthiness, laziness, mental fog, and actual physical discomfort. One fundamentally human endeavor is to maximize pleasure, while maintaining physical and mental stability and minimizing discomfort. To do this, many of us devote our lives to health and fitness, and we’ve come up with a variety of divergent but equally clever aphorisms to guide us in doing so: “One gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, and avoid carbohydrates… Don’t eat meat, but only what grows from the dirt… Fast in the mornings to burn excess body fat… Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” Many of the folks who follow one or more of these adages develop healthy, lean, powerful physiques and they live well. However, one aspect of their health that they choose not to discuss is the interconnectivity of the body and the mind. That is what I would like to explore in this post. We have many methods for alleviating the dual nature of pleasure, but we tend to focus purely on the physical aspects of health and not the more complex mental aspects. Allow me to propose what I believe it takes to have a healthy mind and to exist in a more natural state of pleasure and ease: the regulation of moderation and exposure.

The reality of it is that many of us are uncomfortable with our minds. We lack fundamental self-control and so we set arbitrary limitations for ourselves. Sugar makes us diabetic, so we avoid cake and ice cream. Alcohol makes us fat, so we choose one day per week when we are allowed to drink it. Cigarettes give us cancer, so we vow never to touch them. This last example is a polarizing one. It would seem that very few people have a healthy relationship with the cigarette. Some use it as an hourly crutch, while others can’t stand the sight of it. To the latter, it is a repulsive item that has absolutely no place in their lives. I’d like to make a case for the cigarette, and in doing so, I’d like to discuss how cultivating a healthy relationship with the cigarette can aid in cultivating a healthy relationship with the mind. And along the way I’d like to mention some stuff about “having life in your years” as opposed to “years in your life”, or however that saying goes.

Here’s a personal experience: In the winter of 2018, I was backpacking through Northern/Western Europe and made a quick stop in Bruges, Belgium. On my first night, I found myself playing pool at a bar with some local students I had just met. At one point, one of the students, named Thomas, told me he was going to step outside for a smoke and that I was welcome to join him. I accepted. As I closed the door behind us, the music immediately dulled and the cold air pierced my lungs as my ears began to recover from the thumping music of the pool hall. Thomas handed me a Pall Mall 100, and I placed it between my lips. Soft honey and robust tobacco filled in my nose, as the ambient music of the alley filled my ears. I listened to the soft click of the lighter and watched the flame. I took a slow drag and felt that familiar warmth and clarity spread through me. I started to chat with another guy standing next to us, and was absorbed in the moment. Every time I lifted the cigarette to my mouth, I appreciated its warmth against the bracing March air, and admired the beauty of the fire as it waxed and waned at the tip of the cigarette, slowly approaching my fingers in that strangely gooey, indolent way that tobacco burns. I found myself able to focus completely and enthusiastically on what my new friend was saying, while also noticing the movement of the pigeon-shaped silhouettes against the soft light of the fading sky over the buildings across the alley. This moment of presence and awareness is one that sits clearly in my mind among the jumble of sounds and images that compose that jaunt through Europe. In fact, when I think back on that brief one-month journey, the moments that most quickly and clearly pop into my mind’s eye are the ones in which I took the time to step away from what I was doing, light a fresh gasper and allow the experience to crystallize. In this way, the cigarette very much has become somewhat of a religious item for me; it’s like an evening meditation; it centers me. I get all of this and more when I enjoy the odd cigarette. Returning to the scene in Bruges, what struck me was the seemingly drastic difference between my euphoric, ruminative experience, and Thomas’ smoking experience. When I was about halfway through mine, he had already annihilated his in its entirety and was motioning to head back in. I told him I needed a minute and would meet him back inside. Certainly, the physical and mental effects that Thomas underwent were no different from mine, but it seemed that he was merely scratching an itch. My intention was to remove myself from the hazy pool hall and focus the mind on the present, to force myself to acknowledge where I was and what I was doing, to slow the passage of time and take a lusty swig of life’s tasty marrow. I do not know what was happening in Thomas’ mind as he obliterated his cigarette in three epic puffs, but I have a suspicion that his approach to smoking differed from mine, and that he simply wanted a quick burst of energy before heading back inside for the next game of snooker.

My experience relates a commonplace occurrence that happens thousands of times per night, in every city, in every country. The cigarette has permeated and found its place in virtually every culture, for the simple fact that it makes you feel pretty damn good. But, as with most pleasurable things, there are downsides. Addiction, heart disease, and cancer, namely. The cigarette is therefore taboo for many people and even offensive for some. The basic truth is that cigarettes can be great for the mind, but are terrible for the body. But people of a simpletonic ilk recognize that mental health is just as important as physical health, and that the two are complementary but separate. Mental health has to do with understanding one’s own mind and being comfortable with one’s relationship with his or her mind. To be more specific, this comfort relates to the regulation of moderation. For example, if I am comfortable with my mind, I know that I can eat a single potato chip and control the craving to finish the entire bag in one sitting. If I am able to behave in this way, then my mind and my body have a sturdy relationship. Just as with the potato chip, it’s important to be able to control the craving for a second cigarette. Once the cigarette becomes a crutch, or something one needs to get through the night or to remain excited and conversational, that’s when the relationship has become unhealthy.

As I previously mentioned, smoking a cigarette can be a religious experience, which brings me to my next point: Exposure. Moderation is essential, but anemic without the accompaniment of exposure, because one can practice moderation only if they’ve taken the opportunity to expose themself to “unhealthy” things. What I am trying to say, essentially, is that one should take everything in moderation, including moderation. If one completely cuts themself off from certain experiences, they are sending the message to the mind that they are not comfortable with confronting those experiences and are not confident that they will be able to subject themselves to those experiences in a healthy way.

Of course, there is a threshold to this exposure; I’m not saying that everybody needs to go boot up some black tar heroin in order to be a healthy, well-centered person. I’m also not saying that everybody needs to partake in the occasional cigarette. I choose to discuss the occasional cigarette merely because I personally enjoy the occasional cigarette, and I feel that the act of smoking evinces the duality of pleasure more clearly and potently than just about any other act. While smoking, I recognize the damage that I am doing to my body, but I also revel in the feeling that it provides. I stand balanced at the center of a seesaw. I experience clarity, but I am also deeply aware of the unhealthy burning sensation in my lungs and throat that accompanies each drag. What a fundamentally human notion! I hurt myself, but experience thorough pleasure. I make myself fat with sugar, but who doesn’t love the occasional milkshake? I poison my liver with alcohol, but do I ever feel so alive as when I argue for John Paul Jones’ bass-playing godliness as the “Lemon Song” bops in the background and an empty bottle of wine sits between me and a good friend? What other creature besides man has this strange relationship with the yin and the yang of pleasure? And what other object forces this notion of the duality of pleasure into the user’s mind as forcefully as the cigarette? When I smoke, I embody the human experience with every puff, and I challenge my mind by recognizing that this extreme pleasure is something that is not to be trifled with. And that is the most important point. I ride a unicycle down a thin line every time I light a cigarette, and it is of utmost importance that I remain firmly balanced on that line. The instant that the cigarette loses its religious luster and I begin to utilize it as a crutch, smoking three or four (or a whole pack) on any given night, that’s when I know I need to take a break and reconsider my relationship with it. When I order a milkshake after three weeks of healthy eating, I wouldn’t drink a half-gallon of the stuff; similarly, it is ridiculous to smoke eight cigarettes in a day–or to smoke a single cigarette every night. It is to be reserved only for important occasions and as a tool to bring myself into the present moment, and nothing more. In this way, my relationship with the cigarette is healthy and sustainable, and the cigarette remains a positive force in my life.

Ultimately, we as humans need to take ourselves a little less seriously and avoid over-regulation in our lives. When we embark on an intensely strict diet to lose weight, we fail nine times out of ten. Why? Because we crave the occasional milkshake; when we absolutely block ourselves off from that craving, it builds and builds until we eventually snap and consume three large milkshakes in one sitting. If we relaxed a bit, we would approach that craving in a healthier way; we would enjoy a spoonful of ice cream after dinner to alleviate that craving. We need to learn to listen to our bodies and understand what they want and to understand what our minds are telling us that they want. If we enjoy cigarettes, we can have a cigarette every so often when we want to allow a moment to crystallize. We shouldn’t cut ourselves off from this pleasure entirely. When we do this, we may have healthier bodies, but we weaken our minds, and this weakness seeps into our lives in some other way. Maybe we overcompensate with some other (even more destructive) form of pleasure: “Well, I don’t smoke, so I can feel free to have eight beers tonight.” In sum, I choose to enjoy the occasional cigarette and a crisp pint of beer, for the simple reason that it makes me feel alive. I know that through a limited exposure to tobacco, I am able to moderate the consumption of it, and therefore maintain a naturally healthy and happy lifestyle.

Cheers,
The Sauntering Simpleton