Unbearably Hungry
Yesterday, I must have been writing my post while Pat was commenting on my Friday post. I did not see Pat's comment until AFTER I had written yesterday's post. While I greatly enjoyed all of Pat's comment, this one statement struck me especially:
"[I]t's a psychological, emotional, even a spiritual longing that can't be satisfied merely by the hit of nicotine your pipes provide."
I think in some fashion, Pat's comment above DOES represent a lot of what I tend to feel about pipe smoking. Again, I cannot say with certainty that I am not addicted to nicotine, but the following may help explain some of my thoughts.
In thinking more about Pat's statement, I began to imagine the following options:
1. Beautiful pipe tobacco, robust with nicotine, and dangerous to one's health.
2. Beautiful pipe tobacco, but somehow scientifically designed to not be dangerous to indulge in, but it also contains no pleasant nicotine.
In thinking about the above options.... I have absolutely no hesitation that I would very willingly forgo the pleasantness of nicotine if it meant I could smoke pipe tobacco without worry about its health dangers. Now, nicotine is not the dangerous aspect of smoking regarding health. That is the idea behind the nicotine lozenges…. people who crave nicotine can have it yet avoid the danger of smoking. And again, I admit that nicotine IS pleasant, but like I mentioned yesterday in my clothing analogy, it is not a primary nor secondary concern to me, it seems.
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I also still think the analogy about pipe smoking being a fabric of my life has merit as well. For a lot of decades it seemed an integral part of the fabric of my life, a part I always thought would be there. Similar analogies could be had in thinking about paints always being an integral part of a painter's life, or a pencil being part of a writer's life, etc. The pipe has always been an expression of myself as... a person, as a "professor" even before I became one.
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Two novels I have been remembering about have been on my mind as well. I have, like most, read countless numbers of novels across my many decades. Yet, only a dozen or so hit my mind with such force as to be what I consider "revolutionary" to my thoughts. Some are older, some are newer... but all spoke to me in some sort of transcendent fashion. Here is a listing of what percoloates to the top of my mind in regards to novels.... a dozen novels ranked loosely in terms of significance to ME:
1. Brave New World - Huxley
2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig
3. Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
4. Travels With Charley - Stenbeck (not truly a novel, but "novel-esque")
5. Moby Dick - Melville
6. Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut
7. Walden Two - Skinner
8. Green Hills of Africa - Hemingway
9. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Verne
10. 1984 - Orwell
11. The Giver - Lowry
12. The Time Machine - Wells
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- Ran my usual 10 miles (~16 km) today. Nothing special. But it loosened me up, so that is good.
- Going for an early swim with my beautiful wife this afternoon. I am trying to leave work earlier to enjoy the last remnants of PRE-WINTER weather.
I feel as hungry as a bear! I could eat damn near anything at the moment. Not sure what is for dinner.
PipeTobacco
5 Comments:
Professor, everything I've read has told me that while nicotine is the addictive chemical in tobacco, it's not itself unhealthy in ordinary amounts. Cigarette smokers get hooked on the nicotine in cigarettes, then get their health ruined by the additives in their cigarettes. Pipe smokers inhale far less, and what they do inhale isn't nearly as toxic as cigarette smoke, so while there are surely some health risks those risks are incomparably less than those faced by cigarette smokers.
Let's not forget that the original 1964 Surgeon General's Report was honest enough to acknowledge that the pipe smokers in its surveys actually had trivially longer life spans than non-smokers. Many policymakers found that to be an unacceptable conclusion, so it was discredited and even suppressed, but I believe it was accurate and still is. Sixty years later, the statistics are now confounded by the large numbers of former cigarette smokers who for some years switched to pipes but brought with them their old habits of deep inhaling, but the underlying fact remains: a pipe smoker who has never smoked cigarettes is in an entirely different risk category than a current or former cigarette smoker.
Pipe smokers need to take extra-careful care of their tongues, mouths, and teeth. If they do so, and they aren't former cigarette smokers who learned to inhale, their health outcomes are comparable to non-smokers.
Since you've mentioned Brave New World, let me offer an analogy. Some of the characters in Huxley's novel did become dangerously dependent on soma to a degree that it impaired their lives. But soma , for most, was no more harmful than alcohol -- and without alcohol's side-effects. Its effects, for better and for worse, were psychological. Though as readers we may rightly be appalled, becoming a soma junkie brought psychological consequences far more than health consequences.
The big difference between Huxley's novel and our present circumstance is that pipe smoking is vilified while soma consumption was lauded and encouraged. And there are indeed many people who need to feel social acceptance rather than hold to challenging personal beliefs. Imagine yourself living in a community where the substantial majority of your neighbors were strong Trump supporters. You might stop talking politics. When enough of your neighbors disapprove of pipe smoking, you may find yourself in a similar position. That's unfortunate, but it has very little to do with pipes and very much to do with society. If "being yourself" means being a pariah, that's a challenge that has a lot more to do with personal introspection and character traits than with any objective facts about nicotine and pipe tobacco.
I have read those books. I did try Zen Motorcycle bc someone recommended it. I tossed it fairly quickly due to the mystical aspect. Maybe the rest of the book wasn't like that though.
Hmm…. I do not recall any mystical aspect to Z&AMM….. if you recall those details, please let me know. From my take, the novel was highly philosophical and focused on the idea of living a life where quality in terms of purpose was considered the path to enlightenment and awareness. Yet, a “backstory” of this philosophy in the story also seemed to be that quality of purpose had to also be tempered otherwise it could lead to madness. The care and maintenance of a motorcycle was an allegory of sorts for attempting to live a full and complete life.
As the book was initially written in the late 60s to early 70s I think it MAY have had some aspects of a hippy-esque sort of nod to Eastern Philosophies as well, but at least to the best of my memory, those points were minor and sort of represented the time period.
I've only read a few of those books--embarrassing since I was an English minor. However, I would happily trade "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" for any of those. I do not care for James Joyce!
Good list of books. I've read 6 of them (Brave NW, Zen, F451--just re-read it recently, Travels, 1984--also recently re-read, The Giver). The only one of the remaining 6 I'm tempted to read before my lights go out is Cat's Cradle.
Those 6 books were indeed wonderful, somewhat revolutionary for me too, especially Zen. I remember it so well and even remember with embarrassment forcing a boyfriend to listen to me read out loud a particular passage that I thought was profound. (Cringe)
And wow do I regret using the word *addiction* in an earlier comment about your pipe smoking. I don't and didn't mean to suggest you are physiologically addicted to nicotine. But I stick to my original comment that you DO sound like people in AA meetings who are fixated on doing things they believe/think/know they shouldn't. My new theory (which I'll regret sharing in a few hours) is that while you yearn for your pipes, and to this reader it sounds like you're searching for some solution to the yearning, maybe you're not. You're simply sharing your love of the activity you no longer participate in.
Now I'm off to find my tattered copy of Zen, just to enjoy holding it my hands again, and Cat's Cradle which maybe this time I'll actually be able to finish.
And one more thing: The novels of Julie Schmacher may interest you. All about a professor and his academic buddies and enormous and hilarious goings-on in a small university. Dear Committee Members is the first. I've read the first two and am currently reading her third. They're very easy, quick reads. Oh, and another great funny book about suffering academics is Richard Russo's Straight Man.
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