I Smell Sex and... Cigarettes

19 September 2010

What does it mean to believe? I tried to articulate a philosophical thought on the matter inside a Haight Street bar this weekend. While a close friend smoked outside, I sat with her husband discussing how most foreign countries have gruesome warning labels on every cigarette pack. Aborted fetuses, throat tumors, rotting teeth, and charred lungs are overlooked as the Spanish and Thai chain smoke at their kitchen tables.

Though we are taught that cigarettes kill, it doesn’t stop most of my friends from enjoying them often. And this is not meant to be a judgement against indulgence; I too have had my affair with tobacco. It’s a question of belief. I asked my friend: if you truly believed, with utter conviction, that smoking would shorten a life, would you smoke? Would you condone your wife smoking? I doubt it. You can say the same thing about drinking beer, using deodorant, taking aspirin, and holding a cell phone to your head. All these things are “proven” to cause cancer and kill us in some way or another. Belief really means fear in these cases. But anyone who has the slightest zest for adventure and pleasure will put fear out of their minds in the name of a good time.

The train of thought inevitably brings me to religion. Growing up, I was taught that premarital sex, drinking, taking drugs, and all things that comprise FUN are in fact SINS. Sins make you go to hell. Yet I broke every rule in the book before graduating high school and it was the best thing that ever happend to me. I once shared my guilt with a semi-spiritual, semi-premiscuous high school acquaintance. She was the one who pointed out that if I did wholeheartedly believe that God could see my every action, I wouldn't have dared cross him. That leggy teenybopper enlightened me; I didn't believe in God, at least in the Protestant form that he was presented to me. Fear of consequence goes out the window when boys and Smirnoff Ice come into the picture.

So my conclusion is this: few people genuinely believe that premarital sex leads to hell or smoking kills. Though one may process ideological teachings and scientific fact as truth, to sincerely believe everything you know would turn life into a tea party with grandma (and three teacup poodles).

And when it comes down to it, a 20-something brown eyed girl just gets that much cuter with a cigarette in her hand.