nicotiana

When our ancient ancestors on the steppes and savannahs of the world found themselves confronted by a quandary, they engaged a simple ritual: they made an ikon of it out of wood and grass, then gathered around and burned it, perhaps to the slow beat of the drum and the dissonant, erratic cries of wild creatures around them.

Sometimes, when life like the bends and twists of spacetime itself curves around from good to ambiguous, you find yourself weltering in fears. At work, something may have gone wrong and you wonder if the company will be there tomorrow; at home, you face any number of fears relegated to the personal sphere as if we were all afraid of being infected by them. Sometimes there are tragedies, missed opportunities, or simply the sense of a good era or experience gone by never to return.

At that point, in my view it is sensible to return to the ways of the ancients and make an ikon of tobacco, then convert fear into pleasure by burning it slowly (gourd drum and wilderness noises optional; I usually go for Beethoven, Tangerine Dream, Ornette Coleman, or Burzum). Cut it precisely, light it by drawing the flame close to it but not quite touching it, and then settle down to breath-smoke that tobacco branch as if you were Samuel Clemens, Winston Churchill, or Orson Welles.

In my view, we are here in these incarnate bodies to learn something and report back to the heavens. We seek to understand life as a form of pleasure and not drudgery in the avoidance of fear. We want our lives to have a seed of joy at their center, a sense of meaning in what we do, and a great satisfaction in having made ourselves sane, whole, and abundant with goodwill for nature and (the good among) humanity.

My morality may be simpler than most, but it is this: what works is good, what does not is not useful, and what destroys what works is bad. Make things work. Beat the fears, lack of knowledge, doubt, emptiness, and sadness. Sculpt beauty from the unknown and the mundane alike. What works is an enjoyment of life and a desire to improve it, usually with a cigar in hand.

We may think we have come far from our origins, and maybe we do not even know those origins. Perhaps humans popped up in their present form and ever since then we have been slowly becoming more like the wild animals around us, or more like our machines. But the rituals are eternal, and the slow smolder of flame, the rise of smoke, and the accepting heavens blessed by it both dispel fears and bring joys even in uncertain times.