Tag: Ash Wednesday

“As smoking is going out of fashion, insanity is growing more frequent.” Samuel Johnson. Today, the manic fanatismo of the anti-smoking lobby eloquently confirms the accuracy of this observation. I always instinctively opt for the smoking section in coffee shops, waiting rooms, restaurants and other public places: the company is better, In one respect, smokers do enjoy a spiritual superiority over non-smokers – or, at least, they possess one significant advantage: they are more immediately aware of our common mortality. On this particular point, they certainly owe the anti-smoking lobby a debt of gratitude. The warnings that, by law, must now be printed on all tobacco products unwittingly echo a beautiful ancient ritual of the Catholic Church: on Ash Wednesday, as every faithful is marked on the forehead with the blessed ashes, the priest reminds him , “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Most of the time, modernity endeavours to blunt or to obliterate this awareness of mortality. It should not be confused with a morbid cult of death – which is abhorrent to Christian humanism. (Viva la muerte! Was an obscene fascist slogan when one of Franco’s generals launched it at the beginning of the SpanishCivil War. Unamuno – who was then at the end of his life – denounced it in a speech of sublime passion); on the contrary, this awareness is a celebration of life. Mozart confessed in a letter that the thought that death accompanied him every day, and that it was the deep source from which all his creation sprang. I do not mean that the inspiration which can be drawn from the ominous warnings issued by official Health and Correct thinking agencies will turn all smokers into new Mozart’s, but they will certainly endow smoking with a new seduction – if not metaphysical meaning. I confess when I look at them, I am seriously tempted to buy cigarettes again.