Smoking as a Performance

How cigarettes help us be honest

Albert Camus

Before me stands a conundrum. A dilemma of ethical, moral, and physical implications: do I go back to smoking?

I quit smoking around three months ago. I was sick, couldn’t smoke, and thought, “might as well give it up for the month.” And then another month came, and another, and I’m sort of not sure what to do.

The answer is objectively clear: No, you moron, don’t start smoking again. You already quit. It will kill you. You will have a cough, your immune system will get weaker, and it will kill you. You’ll stink and will have cravings if you start again. And it will kill you.

The problem? I liked smoking.

You have chats you wouldn’t have otherwise, have something to do on a break and feel more confident with it.

It’s an accessory of sorts. I mean, what is it with cigarettes and looking so effortlessly cool? There is just something about those crumpled up tobacco leaves, rolled up and in your mouth that makes you feel like you could conquer worlds.

I tried to explain this to my flatmate and girlfriend— one a non-smoker, the other having recently quit. We were in the library, and I had just shown them an earlier draft of this essay. They weren’t impressed.

“This is just a circle jerk for other smokers to go ‘look at us we’re so cool and nobody understands us,’” my flatmate said.

I tried to defend my position. Clearly, she didn’t understand that I was also critical of smoking.

“You think that, but you’re also defending it.”

I guess I was. But there were arguments to be made, I thought. Every smoker knows it’s bad for you, but still, we do it. Why? We all have our reasons, but for me, it was how it looked.

I associated it with grand figures: Baldwin, Camus, Guevara, Bourdain. These were men I looked up to, that I wanted to be like. I felt like a French philosopher or a chef on his five-minute break when I smoked.

Anthony Bourdain

But then I also sometimes smoked just to have a chat with others. And sometimes, just because it tasted good with my morning coffee. And sometimes, just because the sun was shining. And sometimes, just to have something to do.

I realised there was more behind why I smoked than “I just do it for the aesthetic,” which was the usual way I defended my habit. No not a habit, an addiction. I was a smoker. Even if I romanticised it.

I tried to understand how it got this far. Obviously, there was the addictive quality of nicotine but that didn’t feel like the main issue to me.

Here my girlfriend helped me out. After she heard me say that I might go back to smoking she said,

“You know that’s quite self-indulgent.”

“Self-indulgent?” I responded.

“Yes. What happens in 50 years? You’ll die of lung cancer.”

An argument my non-smoker flatmate had brought up too many times, and which I always dismissed the same way:

“Knock on wood first of all, but if I die of lung cancer that’s my own fault and I accept that. Also at least I have lived a happy life (a life with cigarettes). There are people that do everything right: go to the gym, eat healthy, don’t smoke or drink and still die of lung cancer, and there are people who smoke a pack a day and live into their 90s.”

I liked that quite self-aware defence. That, yes, health was good, but what about the fun? Almost everything that is fun is also damaging to you: alcohol, social media, chocolate. What was wrong with a bit of smoky fun?

“But it is not just a bit of fun, is it? You’ll be 50 and still do it. What about everyone else? Your kids or grandkids? What about me? It’s egoistical.”

I had to admit that she was right. Smoking was egoistical. Especially if you do it for aesthetic reasons.

I tried to understand the aesthetics behind it, the association with great men. Was I trying to reclaim some long-lost forgotten version of masculinity by putting this thing in my mouth and inhaling toxic smoke? And it was about masculinity because I never thought about all the great women, who smoked. I didn’t think about Nina Simone, Monica Bellucci, Simone de Beauvoir or Pattie Smith. Only compared myself to the men.

Patti Smith

A bias I hadn’t noticed before. Associations with intellectualism, glamour, and rebellion that were linked to the cigarette were, for me, inextricably linked to male smokers. As a man, I was biased because I wanted to be like other men before me. I felt myself closer to them when I did as they did. I was performing. It was a way for me to signal the world, “I don’t care about this toxic smoke in my lungs. I am like the greats.” It was a performance of masculinity.

I had to understand this first to then understand that just smoking because of an association was against what these people, men and women, stood for. These were rebels, philosophers, artists, who took their life into their own hands, not trying to imitate others. If I smoked for aesthetic reasons, I would be no better than the people they criticised. I was smoking (performing) because egoistically I thought the world cared about how I was perceived.

Now that I haven’t smoked for three months, I can tell you: the world does not care. We want her to, but she does not.

My flatmate drove this point home: “Quitting is conquering your own ego.”

So, I had to accept that I had an ego. But at this point I still wasn’t convinced. What about all the other aspects of smoking? Many of us are reliant on it to not go mental at work, or in general. Also smoking is a way to connect with each other.

I wasn’t ready to give all of this up. I was already experiencing the negative effects of quitting. I took fewer breaks while on shift at my pub, because, for some reason, it was harder to say, “Could I take five?” than “Could I go for a smoke?”

The first time I asked to take five my manager looked at me and asked if everything was ok. I said of course but realised that it wasn’t normal to ask for five—that most people wouldn’t even think about doing that. You are not expected to have a break, without doing something. Smoking gives your need for a break legitimacy.

The same goes for studying. I would now go out less while slaving away in the library. Yes, taking a break is important, but how could you justify standing outside the library for ten minutes every hour, if not for a smoke?

I traced the problem to me not allowing myself to be unproductive. Idleness was the enemy. Everything needed to be managed. I had internalised the capitalist obsession with productivity. Standing outside for ten minutes, doing nothing, felt unacceptable—an act of defiance against my own self-discipline.

This was also the case when connecting with others. The thing I missed the most were the chit chats I had with my other flatmate. We would smoke on our balcony and have conversations almost every day. There was a shared comradery to it, as we both accepted the rules of these chats:

1. We had to smoke.

2. We had to be outside.

3. The talk was over after we had finished smoking (even though the last point was often ignored).

It feels weird to go up to your friend and say: “Hey, want to go onto the balcony for five minutes and have a chat?”

If we said that, we’d be openly admitting our vulnerability—something that is not only hard to do but actively discouraged.

Individualism is necessary for a capitalistic society to thrive. If all of us were to drive each other to the airport, exchange goods and form meaningful connections, what would happen to Uber, Amazon and Instagram? Capitalistic individualism made us ashamed to admit that we needed community.

Here is where smoking helped. It lets us say the truth without saying it. “Can we have a private chat outside, separate from the group?” becomes “You wanna have a smoke?” and “Can I take a five-minute break because the shift is really getting to me?” becomes “Can I go for a smoke?”

Smoke infused balcony chats

Every smoker understands that when somebody asks you to have a smoke with them, they will have a conversation, one on one, that they otherwise wouldn’t have. It was a community building ritual.

So, here we are: the moral conundrum: Irony and Fun vs Honesty and Health.

I’d love to give you a clear-cut answer on where I stand. On the one hand I understand the need to be bigger than the image of the chef, artist, or philosopher— to stop performing and embrace honesty. But I also know how hard it is to do something you’re not used to and that sometimes the strength just isn’t there.

I’m also not going to pretend that the physical symptoms of withdrawal are not real: night sweats, mood swings, anxiety, headaches. Even if they are stronger for some than for others, it makes quitting so much tougher.

Still, where you can: ask for that chat, ask for that break, and try to enjoy your idleness. In the end, a damaged ego is better than damaged lungs.

I found apples to be a good alternative. They give you something to do for a certain amount of time, and you look oddly confident standing around eating one. So, next time you feel that craving, grab an apple—ask your friend to join, and have a chat infused with crunching and chewing.

Keeps the doctor away too.

Marlon Brando