GOT A LIGHT?

"Got a light?"  This question is the absolute symbol of the

paradoxical human mind.  In the same manner as the tiny lemming drive themselves across the countryside into the sea, many people seem to purposely drive their bodies to destruction for no apparent reason.  For every effect there is a cause, though.  The lemmings make their fatal dash to the sea for the sake of survival.  Their prolific birth rate would, without the mass "suicidal" drives, cause overpopulation of their species, shortage of food, and eventual extinction.

      The human drive is not based upon anything as noble as survival: 

The human works for self destruction simply out of habit:  the "need" to smoke.  The search for self-destruction is taken along many pathways, all of which involve the taking into the body substances which serve only to destroy.  These paths may include coffee, tea, beer, wine liquor, marijuana, uppers, downers, heroine, cocaine, L.S.D., pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco and cigarettes.  The list could certainly go on, for in our unique imagination the means to our end are innumerable.  It would seem, though, that the most serious threat to all people is the non-personal escape route.  This would be the all enveloping smoke of burning tobacco, whether it be from a pipe, cigar, cigarette or Cigarillos.

      Consider the cigarette.  Where it came from is of little importance, for here and now is the time frame in which it must be dealt with.  The fact of its danger is well known, and, most often, ignored.  The substances and chemicals contained and released by fire are well described on every carton, case and package made.  Sufficient warnings are stated:

           "WARNING:  THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS

                 DETERMINED  THAT CIGARETTE

                 SMOKING IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR

                 HEALTH".

      Drawing in and exhaling the smoke of a cigarette is not a personal exercise in suicide.  It is an occasion for all people, smokers and non-smokers, to notify their insurance agents about.  The process of breathing is a process of life born into all people.  The quality of that which is taken into the lungs is dependent upon the individual values placed on the breath of life.  If smoking is the drawing in and exhaling of the smoke of a cigarette or cigar, then when one person carries a lit

cigarette into our air space, all of us will end up smoking it, and by allowing this to happen, we will have demonstrated the same lack of concern for our own health as the cigarette carrier does for his or hers.

      If you are concerned about your right to breathe air provide by the processes of nature rather than the excesses of humanity, if you are concerned about the ever present potential of fire in the country and home, and if you truly need your friends and love your family so much that you would not, just to stay in their loving graces, condone a habit that may be killing them and others, then go ahead and dare to say "Please, don't smoke."

      As a final note, perhaps determining the meaning of the word "smoking" would be beneficial in seeing the senselessness of the habit.  Dictionaries are the mirrors of the values of society.  Smoking is reflected in very poor light but accurately.  The following are the names we as a people have given to cigarettes.

           SKAGG:  The yellow-brown stained fingers and teeth give another view of the two pack a day person.

           COFFIN NAIL:  The mirror image of a cigarette comes through even clearer in the charred human carcass smoldering on the burnt out mattress.

           BUTTS:  We see the vision of lipstick stained filters, and tobacco straining through soggy paper, drying and leaving its stain, once destined for lungs, on white porcelain sinks and urinals, and holes burned on tables and clothes.

           FAGS:  Prostrate with burning lungs and worn out with the effort of driving aching legs and arms on a short jog, the runner attempts to relax with a cigarette and succeeds only in planting more seeds of weariness in pitted lungs.

           GASPER:  Hacking coughs shatter the peaceful world and echo throughout the towns and countryside.  They then gather among the wheezing gasps of breath being crowded out of lungs packed with the ooze of tars and pitted by stains of nicotine burning their way through walls clouded grey by the ever present yellow wisps of smoke.

      Don't pity, therefore, the poor little lemming.  Its mad dash to possible destruction is to the benefit and strength of its species.  Pity, instead, the human who is blinded to all warnings, and strolls unheedingly, to an early grave with a head lost in a cloud of smoke.

Tom