I have said for a long time: “Cigarettes are a nervous habit, Cigars are a confident expression”.
I mean no disrespect or contempt to anyone that may choose to smoke a cigarette or any other legal substance for that matter, you are an adult, you make your own choices and take responsibilities for your own thoughts and actions (I hope).
To me cigars are on one level simply a new flavor to excite and arouse my palette – and with so many choices and boutique cigar makers out there it is a great time to be a cigar aficionado. I suppose it is for much the same reason that as an adult I do not drink Kool-Aid anymore, it is too sweet and the flavors are to simple: Sugar, water and flavored man-made chemicals. There are just other much more interesting beverages to drink.
Cigars as I have learned are infinitely complex in not only the tobaccos used to make them but their Size, Shape, Ring Gauge, Color and the story behind the cigar maker combine to create something that to paraphrase Joseph Campbell, “It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else but can be shared amongst many“.
Cigarettes are the literal definition of mass-production (unless of course you roll your own) and seem to be fodder for an anxious throng. Cigars refine the individuals that smoke them as they often are as personal to the smoker as the food eaten, the clothes worn, the beverages imbibed and the people one chooses to work and play with in daily life as we must slow down to truly enjoy them all.
Be confident in expressing yourself and be good to those around you!