What Is A Cigar?

[khomeinist]

Been a bit busy to give this thread some time. A few thoughts.

A specific cigar is something material. It consists of rolled tobacco leaves, blended for particular sensory and/or commercial effects.

The cigar smoking experience is something ephemeral. Perhaps I can get away with a Heraclitus quote (using my own interpretative paraphrasing as his writings are gone):

'If you step into a river, the waters flow and change, but you are still in the river'.

A cigar is part of a historical process. This process is both personal and part of larger social dynamics. We have our own sense memory. We remember specific moments that a cigar helped to mark. We remain loyal to certain vitolas and lose interest in others. We also are smoking something that is beyond our individual experience and realm of control. Cigar blends change. Certain cigars are no longer produced.

Like all of life's experiences, we are dealing with effects of time, place, and history. For some this is magic. With all due respect, for me this is reality.

Peace