Yesterday, Google celebrated the birthday of the late Stephen Bantu Biko, one of the most influential anti-apartheid activists in 1970s South Africa. I explored his life story a bit (you can do it, too, by
clicking here), and came across this quote
: “The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
As is often the case, I sometimes see philosophical correlations between our nicotine recovery and the issues of other struggles, and I delight in sharing my thoughts with you. In no way, though, would I ever seriously equate quitting cigarettes to overcoming the brutality of racial oppression ; let me make that perfectly clear. I’m simply taking Biko’s words to heart, in the only relatable frame of mind a First-World White man in drug recovery has.
Allow me the liberty to wander, openly?
So, Biko is saying that it is often the fear and forced hopelessness of the oppressed that keeps them demoralized and timid enough to be, thusly, oppressed. He saw that oppressors are often “given” power by the oppressed.
I read that quote, and I thought about it from Biko’s perspective, of course. Then, naturally, I began to think about it from our perspective here at EX.
Cigarettes are just objects. They literally have no power to leap from the pack and pop into our mouths. We often even give them the magical ability to “speak“, and then let them “talk” inside our brains. Well, because they do contain the mind-altering drug that we were dependent on, our minds give cigarettes inordinate levels of power and influence. Think about that : It’s our own minds that give dried-up crumbles of weeds the monstrous power to poison us to death.
Okay, so what about Big Tobacco? That is an actual entity. An actual organization of death merchants and drug pushers, who actively invest multi-millions to keep smokers hooked, and to ensnare new smokers. These are actual people who wield power and influence against us - even in Congress, itself! What hope does a smoker or ex-smoker have against such powerful saboteurs? Well…
When’s the last time a CEO from Phillip-Morris pulled up in his limousine, tackled you on your lawn, and shoved a lit cigarette into your blowhole? (That’s what I thought.) Nah, that fat cat could hand me the keys to a tractor trailer full of free menthols, and I wouldn’t touch ‘em. Because my mind is now educated and awake, my life is now skilled and resourceful, and I’m focused on breaking free of that poison and addiction. Big Tobacco could fire every seductive marketing gimmick at me, and I wouldn’t flinch.
Only I have the power to give them the power.
When we doubt that we’ll learn enough to fight a logical fight, we stay ignorant.
When we refuse to learn enough to fight a logical fight, we stay ignorant, too.
When we fret that we’ll only fail, we never seriously try.
When we dread that it’ll take too long, we don’t even take the first step.
When we are scared that “the new normal” will be dull and empty, we cling to “the old way”.
When we fear that we’ll crave for the rest of our lives, we run back to the comfort we trusted.
When we surrender our choice to the naysayers and tempters and soft-hearted enablers who seek to undermine our attempts to break free, we stop dreaming that we deserve something better.
When we believe that we’re too hooked and too weak and too stressed and too alone and too emotionally fragile or mentally unsuited to quit, then we guarantee that we are absolutely right about all that.
Quite often, we defeat ourselves within our own heads, and the pushers who profit from that helplessness use this to their advantage.
It’s our minds that give the most power to the drug addiction that kept us beaten down. Even when the very real physical symptoms send aching hungers through our bodies, it’s still our minds that misinterpret those sensations as irresistible commands.
Listen, you seriously have more power than you know. If you believe that you actually don’t, then maybe you just haven’t reclaimed enough of that lost power back for yourself. Some of your mind was stolen from you, yes, and more was surrendered by you, of course…but now is the time to correct all of that and take back what’s rightfully yours.
STORM
