{"id":7742,"date":"2024-09-28T13:56:07","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T12:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/?p=7742"},"modified":"2026-01-25T21:48:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:48:42","slug":"burning-money-with-cigars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/burning-money-with-cigars\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning money with cigars!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Fire is a kind of magic to a child, and some of us never grow out of a fascination with it. The heat, the change of almost anything into ash, the smell and the smoke, the different noises of things burning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve recently taken up smoking cigars \u2013 a habit I never thought I\u2019d ever try, let alone enjoy \u2013 and I\u2019ve literally burned a sizable chunk of my savings this summer. It\u2019s an expensive pasttime: Out of the thirty or so cigars I\u2019ve tried out, the cheapest acceptable brand (Don Tomas) is still 55kr each, and the cheapest ones that I prefer (Casa Turrent) cost more than 80kr each. And since I\u2019ve always been of the persuadion that \u201ceverything worth doing is worth overdoing\u201d I\u2019m smoking a couple cigars a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a nice punctiation of my waking hours. Since each cigar takes at least an hour to finish, I need to set aside some time in the garden (or in the greenhouse if it\u2019s raining) and stock up on tea or beer, a book and some sketching paper for the duration. I did buy some pipe tobacco in order to rekindle that habit \u2013 I started smoking pipe when I was 13 \u2013 but it doesn\u2019t give me the same satisfaction, and it burnes my tongue more than the cigars, leaving my tastebuds numb for at least a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s mostly the smoke and the ceremony that I enjoy. My tastebuds are crude and unrefined at best of times, but my appreciation of the smoke swirling out through my nose and into the world still feels as magic as when I was a child and played with fire; picking up a burning stick and swinging it around until only the embers at the tip remained, letting off a thin string of smoke, spreading the smell of burnt pine and leaving a residual glow on my retina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s so little magic in the life of an adult, that I cherish this new habit of mine. At the same time I know that the nicotine addiction is part of it. Already I catch myself looking forward to the next cigar while smoking, and I know it\u2019s not only a fascination of the thing itself that causes that, but the glow of reassurance that comes from being addicted to something and knowing I can satisfy the craving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my plan \u2013\u00a0vaguely formulated and presupposed on the impending autumn and poor weather \u2013\u00a0is to give up the cigars once I can\u2019t sit outside any longer. Having quit smoking and using snus a couple of times already, I think I know what will come next, but that\u2019s fine. I\u2019m quite good at adhering to my own rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know how long I will keep up the fascination and enjoyment of smoking cigars, but I know that I enjoy the illogical transgression of it right now, and I already feel a nostalgia for when I will look back at the days of smoking and not having that sense of serene magic anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fire is a kind of magic to a child, and some of us never grow out of a fascination with it. The heat, the change of almost anything into ash, the smell and the smoke, the different noises of things burning. I\u2019ve recently taken up smoking cigars \u2013 a habit I never thought I\u2019d ever try, … Continue reading Burning money with cigars!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doodles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7742"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8091,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7742\/revisions\/8091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}