Cigarettes, Cigars, and Pipes

Thoughts on Tobacco and the Soul

Hello friends! This is Peregrino, a newsletter about the journey. You’re about to read essay #26 of “40 Before 40,” a memoir I intend to finish before I enter midlife.

I recently watched an episode of Mr. Matt Fradd’s “Pints with Aquinas,” where he interviews Mr. Alan Harrelson, a history professor and owner of The Pipe Cottage, who promotes classic pipe and tobacco culture. Mr. Michael P. Foley’s essay “Tobacco and the Soul” was mentioned in their conversation, so I read it.

I figured I had a thing or two to say about my relationship with tobacco and how it has changed in the couple of decades I’ve consumed it. This piece is an attempt at that.

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Mr. Foley begins his essay “Tobacco and the Soul” by saying that Plato once suggested the soul is divided into three parts: the appetitive, the spirited, and the rational. These align with the three basic kinds of human desires: physical appetites, recognition, and the desire for truth. Then, he says these desires can be mapped to the three main types of smoking tobacco: cigarettes, cigars, and pipes.

Cigarettes

Photo by Andres Siimon on Unsplash

I began smoking around eighteen, Mexico's legal drinking/smoking age. I would usually pair the two together, especially since bars allowed people to smoke indoors; remember those days? I was all about instant gratification. Temperance wasn’t a word in my vocabulary, and I thought I would live forever, as most young people do.

I smoked cigarettes for almost a decade. I toned it down around the time I picked up running. I remember feeling stupid while lighting a cigarette in my car after a 3.2-mile run. I wanted to get better at running, so smoking had to go.

When I moved to Phoenix, I quickly realized how negatively perceived smoking cigarettes is, which helped curve my appetite toward it. Then I met Diana, who hates the smell of cigarettes, which was the last nail in the coffin of my relationship with them. I also got wise about the harmful effects of smoking, and since I was about to start a family, I wanted to rid myself of any vice.

Cigars

Cigar + Negroni

Mr. Foley says that men seeking honor or reputation are drawn to cigars, and the fact that the smoke isn’t inhaled reflects an external focus. I can see how this is the case; however, in my personal experience, cigar smoking has been a source of fellowship and an excuse for good conversation.

Cigars can be intimidating. The lingo is almost enigmatic: vitola, parejos, figurados, honeycomb, pigtail, belicoso, flat, tapered, perfecto. Then the sizes: Robusto, Corona, Churchill. These are all different lengths and ring gauges. You could have the same tobacco rolled into different sizes and have a different smoking experience.

I like that a cigar is a commitment. You need to carve out time to enjoy it. And this is where the fellowship part marries so well with it. For a few years now, I’ve met semi-regularly with friends to have cigars and maybe a drink together. We know we'll sit together for the next couple of hours, sharing what’s happening in our lives. I don’t think I’ve had a negative experience smoking cigars with friends, except maybe when I tried a cigar that I didn’t know was high in nicotine, and I paid for it the next day.

Still, I very much cherish the time and conversations, not so much because of the cigars but because we’re all intentional about spending time together, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but man needs other men. If you don’t have male friends, I’d encourage you to find some and cultivate those relationships. Your cup will get much more fuller.

Pipes

Photo by Val Tievsky on Unsplash

Pipes correspond to the rational part of the soul, which makes sense when you think of intellectuals smoking out of a Peterson pipe, like Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Foley mentions that pipes have both masculine and feminine elements, unlike cigars, which are masculine in form. This corresponds to the philosopher’s activity, the masculine pursuit of Lady Truth, and the feminine reception of anything she discloses.

I own three pipes and haven’t used them in a while, but I want to resume this activity, especially after hearing Mr. Harrelson talk about pipe culture as the antidote to living in a hurried world. Smoking a pipe can help us slow down and contemplate the events of the day, the things we have done, and the ones we have to do. I don’t know if Mr. Harrelson has read Mr. Josef Pieper’s “Leisure: The Basis of Culture,” but it sounds like it.

I liked Mr. Foley’s remark that, unlike cigarettes and cigars, a pipe endures. My collection is still small, but I remember how I acquired each. One I bought at a tobacco shop with my friends on a brisk afternoon in December. One was a birthday gift from a friend, and the other I bought at an antique shop in Cottonwood, Arizona, Diana and I went to.

Even though I have enjoyed smoking pipes with friends, I can see how smoking a pipe solo can be conducive to relaxation, meditation, and even prayer. Today, I cleaned my meerschaum pipe in anticipation of a smoking session over the weekend. It is almost a ritual in and of itself. Who knows, maybe this publication will now be written under the influence of pipe tobacco rather than caffeine.

Mr. Foley notes the rarity of pipe smoking in America as a telling sign of its current intellectual crisis, the need for philosophy and serious thought. This leads me to think that we may have a better society if more people smoked a pipe instead of vaping or smoking cigarettes. I believe Mr. Harrelson would agree with his conclusions. As for me, I have yet to see what fruits come from my explorations in pipe smoking.

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Before you go

I have some questions for you

1. Do you smoke?

2. If you do, what do you smoke?

3. Do you think we’d have a better society if more people would smoke pipes?

4. Should I put that in my pipe and smoke it?

5. Do you have any questions for me?