Track Mangoes

Portland wasn't actually from Portland. She only told people she was because every time she did they would smile at her and tell her that they had always thought about moving there after college. And the people who knew watched her with half drawn eyes and noticed the peculiarity of her mannerisms, the way she drank her coffee, and spoke in the winter. Despite the fascination nobody would have her because she cried far too much; but New York kept her around for the same reason.

New York was a dirty girl. Some people found her irresistible, others found her trashy. Nevertheless, if you asked it of her, she would get you off quicker and harder than any broad you had ever met. She had years of practice and knew just what it was that made you tick. Still, every time you left her house, covered in the cacoon of her musk, you couldn't help but feel a little violated.

New York and Portland were sitting at the lunch table starring at Minnesota. Minnesota, they knew, was shy, yet pretty. She had a modest sense of style and always kept her hair back in a loose pony tail. She was talented too, and both New York and Portland appreciated that she tried just a little bit harder to make you completely and comfortably satisfied.

I seldom hear my own name. Generally I've been referred to by saccharine terms of endearment. My family has given me many, my favorite being "Poo-Goo," a play on the Tibetan "Pugu," meaning "Kid," most frequently used in a pejorative sense. In elementary school I was referred to as "Jensy," and "Jensy-Poo." In middle school I was known as "faggot" or "that kid who wants to turn you gay." Upon moving into the liberal inner-city, my friends, many of whom were gay, referred to me as "Jenzabelle" and "Nippolean," a play on Nepalese (my heritage), Napoleon (my penchant for the french language), and Nipple (?). When a fatty scholarship subsumed me into the thightly knit circle of Portland's private education, having developed a reputation as a Libertine, I was often referred to as "Pacific Rim." In college I've heard "Jensicle," "Jenzelle Washington," and "Jenzle Bear." Most currently my roommates refer to me as "Dick," "Douche," "Boiye," "Papa Parrot," and "Baba Hadoor," a play on my Nepalese given name, Bamba Hadhur.

The terms of endearment given by our parents is no mystery, "Little One," "Young One," etc. Yet the nicknames manifest in yet stranger cultural ways, such as the quintessentially American habit of referring to our presidents by their initials. This power of the nickname to dismantle the materiality of an object has been widely studied by post-structuralists and perhaps explains the phenomenon of the human desire to refer to genitalia through grade-school abstractions, even late into life. Naming, for these paranoid theorists, is a violent act.

The Bible tells us the most secret name of God, the Shem Ha Meforesh, could be uttered only by the high priest in the afternoon of Yom Kippur. Alone he enters the Holy of Holies and there would say the name. Rope tied around his ankle, so that, should he die while in the Holy of Holies, he could be gotten out. No one else, of course, was permitted to enter, for the power of God would slay the unholy. Hence, if the high priest was insufficiently cleansed or impure of heart he would die upon entry. Just like the lot of us.

I am hard pressed to find any individual who, when asked if they would enter the Holy of Holies, would not, for a moment, in the very least, pause. For the question is not Would You Go In That Room, but Are You Pure?

Take the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. Trapped in a tower a girl must complete the impossible task of spinning flax into gold in three days time, or ELSE. All hope is lost until a dwarfish creature helps her along in return for her first born child. The flax spun to gold, the daughter marries the Evil King and bears a child. Little Man comes back and demands the child payment for his services. When the daughter just-can't-let-go the little man strikes her a deal: "Guess my name and I'll leave you alone." Upon realizing that every man in her life is, in fact the oppressor (the father who sold her, the king who raped her, and the little man who deceived her) she guesses his name and is free from strife. What is this but the myth of psychiatry?

To say one's own name is more painful than any act of self-mutilation. For, when we refer to ourselves by our own names, a sociologist would tell you, we conceptualize our being on terms that we have seldom created. The deeper aspects of our self-image come even more powerfully from our experiences with other people. And just as the rape victim who wonders "was my skirt too short" knowing-the-self can be used to oppressive ends. But this is no mystery.

What is mysterious is the extent to which such a "looking glass self" reaches into what a Christian might call the "soul." For our very consciousness is not, as Cooley would have us believe, social. Or at least not purely social. For that pause upon entrance into that Room Where God Dwells is a reflection upon this fundamentally American question: is there something inside me which is authentic?

It comes as no surprise to me, then, that secular humanists believe in the power of the ritual act of religion, the value of the "community," solidification of the tribe, identification with the totem, all outside of a regime. Of course these people, addled by Foucault, belive in the power of the tribe: they don't believe in god. At least not in a meaningful way. And it is certainly not that they don't believe in God. A true atheist sees the bloodshed that religion has brought upon the world and runs through the streets preaching the path to salvation. No, these secular humanists believe in nothing at all, save for, perhaps, the benefits of circle songs and potlucks.

"But wait!" you will say, and you are right. Anyone who has spent a modicum of time in an American Studies course knows that no one in their right mind would ever say, "Everything is pretty good." To do so would be blasphemy. Instead we say, Your bigotry, your racism, your hatred stem from your ignorance and your backward way of life is detestable. And these people who act as the butt of our own hatred are the supposed monsters. That is, in the very least, debatable.

Perhaps this is what Lady Gaga is trying to tell us, that we are, all of us, in fact, monsters paving the path of our own destruction, and since we are on the verge of killing ourselves through war, and famine, and environmental crisis, through hate crimes (from the left and right), and destitute we should at least look good while we do it. She is, I feel, a pop Oscar Wilde. Well, not her, per se, but the army of gay men that are employed full time to keep her standing.

As Freud taught us, the resistance is the neurosis itself. And it is not the employment of the name itself that is oppression, nor is it simply our awe of the secret name of god, but the manipulation of our awe. So as the government assigns colors to levels of threat we must come to the understanding that such a stratification is the avowal that there is, indeed, no threat at all, or that if there is a threat there is little to nothing we, or the government, can do to stop it.

Simply "owning" the name does not remove it from that system of oppression we so often like to think we're in. My love of referring to myself as a "fag" does not change the fact that others will think it unseemly, just as Malcom X disowning the name given to him by the white man does not solve the problem of racism in and of itself. It's never enough to "take it back," whatever that means. For the construction itself is far more powerful for the absence of its content.

I had my first cigarette when I was 16 years old. My father had a party at his apartment in Portland the night prior and the next morning I found a pack of Camel wides underneath the sofa while I was looking for my cell phone. I remember feeling the utmost sense of intrigue. I didn't quite know what to do with them. I couldn't smoke them, that would be an obscene breech of parental trust. Would he be able to smell it? What was even the correct way to smoke a cigarette? I hadn't the slightest clue.

We didn't have any matches in the house, but my father lit incense every morning as part of a religious ritual with a wind resistant barbecue lighter. So I stuffed that in my jacket pocket and headed outside. I rounded the block and lit up on a corner with the miniature blow torch. Does anyone inhale their first cigarette? I did. I think. The only reason I believe I inhaled my first time, not for lack of wanting to sound like a pubescent pariah, of course, but I believe this because I got sick. Collapsing on my sofa when I returned home I thought I would never smoke again. I wondered why anyone started. I felt alone and weak and full of poison.

One might think that such an unpleasant experience would exist in my mind as the stuff of nightmares. But I've been smoking ever since, and I can only recall the memory with the utmost fondness. Unlike the heroin addict, who is constantly trying to recreate her first high (a time she will, unfortunately, never manifest), the smoker remembers their first cigarette as the beginning of a great era of ill famed joy.
The interesting thing about cigarettes is that they don't actually give you pleasure until you've become completely addicted to them. Every smoker must go through and initial period of disgust before the fun starts. People report nausea, vomiting, dizziness, uncomfortable rise in heartbeat, etc. So this beckons the question, why would one start? Why would anyone subject themselves to the rigorous task of becoming an addict? It isn't pleasant. It isn't fun.

The simple answer (given by anyone who has never smoked before) is that smoking looks "cool." It enhances your image. Makes you look more mature. Non smokers, with their do-good chicanery, chastise smokers for adhering to, or perhaps buying into an image. The non-smoking soccer mommy (inside her SUV, bleached hair held back in a furious pony tail sticking out of the back of a Nike cap, her hands clad in leather gloves clenched tightly to the steering wheel, her Pearline teeth grinding when the man in the Volvo cuts her off) accuses the smoker for selling out!

There have been countless attempts by anti smoking campaigns to counteract the "cool" image smoking supposedly provides; and yet, teenagers continue smoking in ever increasing numbers. What about maturity? As long as kids have a reason to believe that they aren't respected as adults (read, eternity) then they will, I suppose, continue to smoke. But these justifications are far too simple. For sticking that dollar bill in that bucket isn't really about wanting to help people in Haiti, is it?

What is more, every day there are constant real-life reminders for kids of how closely tied to class smoking is. The chef standing out back during his smoke break or the janitor having his morning cigarette is a far more powerful and persuasive image than a smoking camel, despite what paranoid cultural theorists would have you believe. The child, on his way to school, is more intrigued by the the bus driver. The waiter. The college student. These are things children are far more likely to see and deeply internalize as parts of their cultural milieu. Not Audrey Hepburn with her ivory cigarette holder. Not Sherlock Holmes with his Kabash pipe. Not stuffy old men in humidors. No. It is the malcontent working classes and angry youth subcultures that convince children to buy a pack.

But what is it about these classed images that is so persuasive to children? What do they see in these people that makes them want to forgo that initial period of disgust? Why do kids start smoking? What is so intriguing that they will temporarily suspend regard for their own health in order to experience something they can't yet understand?

These adults on their smoke breaks or the hipsters outside the concert hall represent a human experiencing a particular state of being, a particular sensitivity to an alternate perception of time movement. When the child spots his father at his desk toiling away, buried by paper work, she sees a man oppressed by chronology. But when she sees her school teacher furtively sneaking out for a cigarette she sees a woman reveling in occasion. For the primary purpose of a cigarette is to deliver a single dose of pleasant nicotine.

What is it about the state of being addicted to something that is so desirable? Forget the image. What does addiction bring to a kid's life that isn't already there? Is it that there is some desire for addiction itself operating here?

I have often joked to friends that when I quit smoking I will do it cold turkey, with the exception of my cigarette after after sex, during European films, long baths, inside of diners in Wisconsin, when angry, when drinking, when around other smokers, and in pensive solitude. (I suppose you can be celibate over and over, but you can only be a virgin once.) Everyone has their preferred moment for smoking. Sure, you can step outside and take a moment to yourself, but to punctuate that moment with a pleasurable indulgence of one's addiction causes the mind to forge an association with celebration in the midst of a grueling day.

Just like prisoners who tick away the days on the walls of their cells with chalk, each cigarette serves to stratify day's hours. Wake up. Have a cigarette. Eat lunch. Have a cigarette. Go home. Have a cigarette. Make dinner. Have a cigarette. Watch a movie. Have a cigarette. Go to bed. Dream of cigarettes. By chopping the hours into perceptible units of chronometry the days move faster and less oppressively. Indeed, it is not the cigarettes themselves that bring happiness but the way in which they change a person's perception of time, which is perhaps why it is said that quitting smoking is tougher that quitting heroin.

This is why the patch is simultaneously the most and least effective way to quit smoking. On the one hand it delivers a massive dose of nicotine that is spread out through the day in a continuous stream. On the other hand, it robs the smoker of rhythm. For it is that rhythm, the tick of addiction's clock, that is most appealing to a smoker, not the pleasure of nicotine itself.

Anyone who is trying to quit (myself at present) will tell you that the days drag on without cigarettes. The ex-smoker begins to gain weight and feel fat. Smoking causes a shortness of breath that gives a rush of blood, causing a smoker to talk rapidly and with urgency. A quitter, then, reports feeling stupid and slow. The unsympathetic non-smoker will say "Get over it." But if the non-smoker felt fat and stupid they too would sulk around the house in a bored stupor. The smoker's fundamental perception of how time moves is essentially less boring and more fun. The ex-smoker can only remember such a happiness. A non-smoker will never really understand that. So, if a smoker has ever told you that she doesn't want to quit because cigarettes make her happy it's because They Do. When a child sees a smoker, she sees a person indulging in a truly happy moment. What is more persuasive than that? It's a miracle more kids aren't smoking! Perhaps the solution is never to start.

So, the question as posed in the title still remains open. How do we get kids to stop smoking? Making cigarettes look cheap, immature, and ugly simply won't work. We must ask Why, child, do you feel a need to change your time perception as such? What is so terrible about your existence? Unfortunately we cannot ask this because the child's response will not matter to us. The ubermensch is so because he chooses not to listen to the morality of slaves. He tramples over the meek just as adults write off the sorrows of children as immaturity, teenage angst and moroseness. But to the youth, it never feels so abstract. As adults we cannot remember the rawness that immobilizes the teenager to a mopey mess. As adults we tell children to enjoy their childhood while it lasts, just as "professionals" tell college students. But how can they when their existence is characterized primarily by suffocation?

The child feels the need parse out the hours of the day because, to him, time is tyrannical. He is imprisoned in school, at home, by his bubbling hormones and the intensity at which he experiences the world. Life moves for the child as it does for the inmate: slowly, grueling, never ending. The adult smoker smokes because he must, because otherwise he might off himself. For smokers, life without cigarettes would be unmanageable. For ex-smokers the life they live is not life at all, simply a dull progression towards death, not the hurdling existence they once knew. Non-smokers then seem to be the lucky few who were born too dumb to need cigarettes, too deaf to hear the violence of their surroundings, to blind to see the reality of the world they're living in.

So, in order to get the child to quit smoking we must eradicate his desire to smoke and in order to do that we must make his life worth living. And that is an impossible feat, to be sure.