Student of Life

I sat and watched inquisitively as the smoke from my cigarette floated languidly into the crisp night sky. This tobacco smoke, as if possessing its own capacity for philosophical understanding, climbed peacefully, slowly twisting and turning, as if with prehensile-like arms toward its desired destination. It was where it needed to be and was going where it needed to go. It was quiet. The stillness was a bit stifling. There was no confusion or bumbling or faltering. There was no mystification. There was only quiet certainty.

Now, this was obviously my personification of an insensate thing. I was projecting my own incertitude, confusion, and frustration onto the world around me. This smoke really has it together. Why can’t I achieve the same decided comfort? How evidently easy it is simply to be at peace. This smoke is on to something.

I momentarily missed the interesting fact that my ascription of peace, harmony, understanding, and happiness to this sage-like smoke was ultimately the byproduct of burning a cancer stick. Moments of clarity are often enmeshed in the farcical and ironic. Lucidity and understanding are sometimes entrenched in absurd tapestries of ideas and events. Such is life.

Life can also be simple, even if it isn’t often simply understood. A quotidian philosophy can be easily developed by almost anyone. Indeed, most of our heavy intellectual and emotional lifting is done in the most profoundly banal circumstances. (I say, with slight humor, consider the toilet).

Many authors might wax eloquently about the rising smoke from their expensive Cuban cigar, as they write from some luxurious, privileged enclave – perhaps a majestic beach or canyon, or some similar envy-provoking holdout. Not this author. Let me paint you a picture: I sit under an oppressively dim, Orwellian-invoking street lamp hovering menacingly above, which was strategically placed in my back yard. My wife and I rent from a retired electrical lineman – a person with a dangerous vocation. He would repair obstructed or destructed electrical lines caused by a storm or adventurous (and concomitantly dead) animal. This burly and simplistically wise old retiree installed this lamp to illuminate the shadowy back yard. (The streetlamps in front of the house were not quite sufficient in their illumination.) I occupy a weather-ridden, slightly rusty, black metal chair. This sits on an aged concrete patio that is surrounded by an unkempt “garden” area (which, I admit, is from my lack of attending to it). All of this in a ridiculously pedestrian, tightly organized neighborhood, built in the 60’s (picture the one-story, monochromatic scene), dwelling in unabashed, suburban mediocrity. I live, smoke, and write this from an avowedly uninspired enclave of my own (comparatively speaking, here).

I sit and light up this smoke, watching its contents unfold, just so I can enjoy letting my mind freely wander. It took me a while to decide whether or not that was sad, if not somewhat ridiculous. I don’t even “smoke.” But, at that time – the time I also decided that writing a book might not be such a bad idea – watching this smoke, like an inspired whirling dervish dancing toward the sky, produced as serene and lucid a moment that I reasonably could have hoped for. In this case, or at any rate, I couldn’t admonish myself too much for personifying smoke or burning a cancer stick.

That is as modest as it can be. True moments of clarity can come in the light of – or in spite of – simplicity. I did not need to paint a resplendent picture of untouchable beauty or rarity – like our envied, hypothetical, cigar-smoking author (it would have been untrue at any rate). I sat poor, probably unshaven, and watched as my humdrum cancer stick burned intently in the opaque night. Can you imagine a more uninspiring event? The point on which to take note is my full immersion or engagement in my activity - not the smoking, but what it produced. This is what truly matters in living a happy, sustainable life; or, at least a life that attempts to maximize happiness. And why wouldn’t that be an important goal?

My opening offers a good anecdote to display my point about this book, but it certainly isn’t the only moment. Understanding our lives – and what we can do to maximize happiness and understanding – can occur in unsuspecting moments at any given time. We should not, however, be passive bystanders. Fully engaging ourselves with and in these experiences can give us an unwavering confidence – whether we be poor or rich, unshaven or debonair, provincial or cosmopolitan, or busy or free – to grab our lives by the tail, smile at them (pardon a trite cliché), and change what we want to change. To know when and how to study each moment, actively engaged, is the picture I intend to paint for you with this book. There are many ways to do this, many avenues to discover, and I spend the rest of the book laying this out and driving this home. It really matters.

The take home message, then, is that if you don’t yet smoke you should probably go ahead and start (relax, Dr. Phil, I’m kidding). Prolific writer and contrarian, Christopher Hitchens, once wryly quipped: “I think everyone has a book in them. And in most people that is where it should stay.” I hope the need for writing this book will be self-evident in the pages to come. (And, if any of this is confusing, I suggest you quickly purchase the book and read on for further elucidation.) It was coming out of me anyway, even if it should have stayed there. At any rate I thank you, Dear Reader, for taking the time even thus far to read these words, and I sincerely hope you and your life are the better for it.

(If not, you should probably at least forget about that whole smoking bit.)