Hamlet Smokers

One more smoking thing. You're right, there's nothing creepier than a non-smoker who thinks about smoking a lot, but I don't see you having so many big ideas on your blog. So until you can get as far as I have without going to the cigarette well again and again, don't complain to me. Besides, I like the way it smells.

Reading the comments on that petition, or reading anything else these days, you see my favorite stock character, the regretful smoker. "I started smoking when I was ten and now I can't quit and I hate it every day and I wish I could quit and don't start."

These people apparently have the idea that there's nothing sexier than looking conflicted, perhaps from watching too many Hollywood thrillers. I dislike them for several reasons. First, if you really wanted to quit, you could. Unless you literally have no control over your limbs (sleepwalker, paralytic, puppet), your cigarette-smoking behavior is subservient to your desire. It is impossible to be able not to smoke, and to want not to smoke, and to smoke.

What I suspect they mean is: "When I'm full of nicotine, and full of dopamine, and not suffering through withdrawal, I can imagine never smoking again. When nicotine levels start to fall, I start to want to smoke." To translate this into "I wish I could stop smoking," however, displays a pathetic unreality: "I wish I always felt as good as I do when I'm drugged without having to suffer for it." You might as well eat a big expensive meal, then when the bill comes at the end, cry because you have to pay. You knew what you were getting into when you started the meal, and just because your desires are stated after dessert, that doesn't give you justification to denounce your hunger retroactively.

Moreover, I don't want to hear about your internal conflict. Other people don't bare their wounded consciences, you know. We didn't get to hear about how Lynndie England knew that tormenting those prisoners was wrong and that she shouldn't take photos but gosh did it feel good to make them grovel and kids; don't join the army. And we certainly didn't get to hear Ken Lay's internal dialogue, although it probably just would have sounded like a lot of oinking.

So why do smokers think we want to hear their Pilgrim's Progress? Perhaps the idea is to make themselves sound like fussy babies, the better to scare kids away. And maybe people like this are better role models for public health than Humphrey Bogart. (Lives saved by collective American whining: Ten) But gosh if they aren't making this a sorry place to live. I don't think I want to know that so many people in America hate themselves for what they've become.

If you want to quit, that's fine, but do it. Then you can become that other favorite character, the messianic ex-smoker. If you're going to keep smoking though, please smoke with a full heart. Inhale your cigarettes enthusiastically, like they apparently did in the TV ads that I have never seen. If I ever take up smoking, even if it becomes my personal demon, I'm going to pretend to love it. I'm going to prosletyze to kids, and recommend brands. If people think you don't have convictions, what are they going to think of you? Another flip-flopping Massachusetts liberal, they'll think, and you know how that comes out.