USA TODAY: I know smoking is bad for my health. We all know that. So why is it making a comeback?
The sight of snuffed cigarette butts in an ashtray might feel jarringly anachronistic these days, given successful efforts to curtail the smelly act for decades.
Nonetheless, we're edging toward a resurgence, at least in popular culture, of the classic combustion of an old-school cigarette, even if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assures us rates aren’t yet increasing. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen into the quiet resurgence.
I’m a 46-year-old diabetic who tries to be healthy, yet after quitting 20 years ago, I find myself back in the alley occasionally (always shamefully) puffing as I hold pleasure and consequence in the same breath. My friends call it nostalgia. I think it's deeper – a defiant exhale of the angst and authenticity I crave in an uncertain world.
The historical canon of smoking is well-documented from early 20th century glamour and association with sophistication, rebellion and artistic freedom – see flappers, film noir, World War II soldiers, the Beat Generation, the Marlboro Man and Bob Dylan.
I grew up in the haze of the 1990s when smoking wasn’t just a habit, it was a personality – raw and rebellious – butts smeared with Courtney Love’s red lipstick, the thrift-store fantasy of "Reality Bites," the sultry detachment of Mia Wallace in "Pulp Fiction."
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Smoking offers a palpable pause, a singular moment of physical presence in an existence mediated by the ever-present pressure of political machinations. And when those threats feel ambient and involuntary, smoking is a sensory language all its own, where the health consequences almost fade to black (like my lungs) as I relish each tantalizing feature of personal agency.
Read the whole article here | Written by Andrea Javor, Opinion contributor | Undated
