Joe Rogan on Cigarette Addiction

Well, let's talk about a super common one that's horrible. Cigarettes. You got hooked by that bug. Ari got hooked by that bug. Red band still hooked. Joey Diaz kicked it. You know, that's a really, really, really common one, man. That sort of defines people. I'm that guy who smokes. I'm gonna walk into this store and even though I know these things cause cancer, I'm gonna buy a pack. I'm gonna go outside and I can't wait to light it up. I'm just not even thinking about that right now, man. I'm trying to relax. Can you get that thing in your mouth? There you go. And you take that drag and you feel that cancer-causing chemical rush. Yep. And you're like, I'll take it. I'm alright today. No cancer today. You take a big deep breath, you blow it out, and you look at the other fellow cancer dodgers and they're just looking at you and they're smoking together and everybody just, they're just really good at dodging cancer. So, you know, another, one way you could actually say it is like every time you do that, you're planting a seed. So every time you smoke a cigarette, you could imagine that you have this field, right? And the field is your health. And in that field, any time you like exercise or do something, you know, decide instead of eating the fucking ice cream, you're gonna eat the seaweed chips or like, anytime you do that, you could just imagine. Obviously, it's not the way it works exactly, but you could think I'm planting a seed in this field, right? So if I keep planting certain types of seeds in any type of field and I cultivate those seeds, they're gonna grow into something, right? That's karma. So what, when, when, you know, for a person, when the cancer comes, when the muscles come, when the failure comes, when the success comes, if you look at that moment, you realize this is actually the flowering of a thing that's been growing for a very long time inside of me or in the world or in time. So that's the idea. People already have within them planted all of these seeds that haven't, haven't been expressed yet into time because they're still inside of them. Like the dude with the, like imagine a guy with the guy who like shot the guy because he had road rage, you know? That guy for years had a really bad anger disorder and he knew it. You know, there, he would look, he would think at times in this very calmest moments, I sure get really angry all the time. I don't know if this is normal, right? A lot of those people were beaten when there were kids. That's it, dude. Yeah. Super common. Yeah. Yeah. Super common trauma. So yeah, man, that's like cigarette smoking, any kind of behavior that like is risky or over time produces some kind of negative result. It's just planting seeds. Yeah. You know? And so the momentum you're experiencing right now is the sum total of all those fucking seeds that you planted and that were planted inside of you over the course of your life. That's what you're, you are, you're like a walking field of karma at varying stages of growth, growing varying types of vegetations and some are good and some are bad, but it's like, that's what you are right now. And what's beautiful about that is that means that you can start cultivating that field, you know, you don't have to just like let it grow wild and pretend every time you smoke a cigarette or do some stupid shit. You're like an unconscious farmer, you know, right? I just throw seeds everywhere. Oh my God. What? Can't believe I'm drinking and driving again, but I gotta get home. There you, oh shit. Oh my God, the D U I plant grew again in the field. I wonder why that thing keeps growing in my field. Well, cause you keep fucking drinking and driving, dude. The D Y plant. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can cultivate it. That's what's beautiful about it. You know, you can cultivate the field. You don't have to let it just like have fucking weird random weed spring up. They'll let a patch or two have some weeds cause those are fun. Imagine spending that tobacco money and spending that money thinking about all that cancer, just spending all that money. God, just buying a big castle with all that cancer money. Look at it all. Castle cancer. Hey, the people want it. They want it. In this country, you've got the freedom to buy whatever you want. Well, yeah, right. I mean, it's a person's choice, but, but to get back to what you were just saying, the ethics of the fucking thing, how about this? How many people who run big tobacco own stock in companies that make chemotherapy drugs? There's a big question. Like how many of those people in their portfolio that they barely know about that they're like, well, you know, like a really big investment these days is a gene therapy for cancer. Really? Is cancer out of hand these days? Huh? Really interesting. I wonder what could be going wrong. The problem with cigarettes is that they're addictive. Well, just that they kill you. Yeah. But that they're addictive. Like I've smoked a cigarette before and it gives you a head rush or like a nice little weird rush. It's I and also the other problem is nicotine is a medicine and it has like some health benefits if used in the right way. And also it's a nootropic. So yeah, it's like not, it's not just like it gives you a rush. It's like it's, it's, it's, uh, some of your brain, you're bracing you a little bit. Yeah. Stephen King said that was one of the most difficult things when he quit smoking was not having one way rights. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you, because that's the nature of addiction. It's like kudzu does to trees. It wraps around your favorite thing in life and tricks you into kudzu. Kudzu is a plant that was introduced from Japan and I think from Japan into the south and it's just a growing wheat vine that when it wraps around trees and it covers them up completely so the trees can't get any sun and the trees just die. Yeah. It wasn't native to the United States. So sometimes, I don't know, maybe they took care of kudzu, but when I was a kid, you would drive by these beautiful forests that were, where the trees were just covered in fucking kudzu. Yeah. Like that. Holy shit, dude. Yeah. That's crazy. It's like they got eaten by other plants. That's right, man. And those trees are dying. They can't get the sun. Oh my God. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. And that's a great metaphor for addiction or for, yeah, because that is a perfect metaphor. Yeah. Oh my God. That's insane. How did I not know about this? I don't know. It's definitely seems like something you know about. Look, it looks like they're alive. It looks like people. Dude, there is just too much to know. There's too much cool.