Day Fifty-Seven

I would probably call myself a tree-hugger, and happily do so. I don't litter; I don't buy Dunkin Donuts with their Styrofoam cups; I avoid plastics as often as possible (sorry Aquafina); I try to keep the lights off as often as possible. And yet, just two months ago, I nonchalantly would flick my used cigarette butt out of my car window on the interstate, or behind my place of employment, or into a puddle on the side of the road which would carry this little memorial of myself into the sewer drain, secretly voyaging beneath my feet and perception to our beautiful Chesapeake Bay. Beautiful, delicious, oversized fishfood refusing decomposition.

Originally, I began researching information regarding the 'footprint' behind my former habit, but I hit two roadblocks: personal laziness and a severe distaste for statistics. Perhaps my laziness results in my apathy toward statistics. And yet, what can I really gain from knowing the amount of trees cut down per year in the name of cigarettes (11.4 million tons annually - and that is merely for the curing process; not including papers); what does the fact that 4.5 trillion non-biodegradable cigarette filters are deposited on our earth every single year really provide? We cannot comprehend what that number even means because we have neither seen 4.5 trillion cigarette filters nor can intuit 11.4 million tons of tress and what they would look like standing tall in the world. Nicorette boasts that its product, 'doubles your chance of success'. What the fuck does that even mean? You either quit, or you don't, right? And what, exactly, is defined as 'quitting'? Six months? Two years? Our final sleep?

While I admit a certain infatuation with the symbolic nature of numbers, statistics, like those above, function to retard our mental activity. Of course my consumption of cigarettes supports deforestation. Where else does one obtain wood to burn for tobacco curing? How the fuck else do we cheaply manufacture paper? Where did I think my butts would end up? Vaporized by the Camel wizard the moment they are out of sight? Come on, me! Intuition. Investigation.

Perhaps I was willing to compromise my ethical, existential values in praise of cigarettes in the past, but now I have shed myself of them, I re-energized in my commitments to the world in which I live and the philosophies I have both espoused and preached. It is time to fully investigate the consequences of my daily actions, from my morning commute to my morning cup of coffee. I am not an island, and neither are you.