It's beauty speaks to me in such sweets whispers

Today’s been a busy day.  As a business continuity/disaster recovery planner, you can imagine that my office has been running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off among all this swine flu news.  I won’t say that we’ve been happy campers, nonetheless, we take a certain enjoyment from our work, and hence we have been happy campers.  Only one engaged in preparing for disaster can speak about pandemics or natural disasters with a spark of glee in their eyes.  Most folks simply chose not to talk with us when we wax on about our own delightfully obscure topics.

 

And this got me thinking.  How much more “delightfully obscure” could a topic be than pandemics?  Well, pipes for one thing.  Our joy is a niche market, as it were.  Were often uniquely focused individuals.  I, for one, can wax on about the differentiation between the Italian, Danish and English schools of shaping, and how each one bears a hand in what is becoming the American school of pipes.  And yet, if you try and engage me about something as pertinent as what to do about the gutters or the general state of the house, I am likely to stare at you with a blank, unknowing expression.  “Yes, we have gutters.  What about them?”

 

And so, it comes to me that I cannot comprehend what draws one into the pipe smoking fold.  And I don’t mean just as a smoker, as that is plain enough.  Perhaps one’s father or grandfather smoked a pipe.  Or perhaps one picked up a pipe to alleviate the stress of letting go of cigarettes.  And please, dear reader, I do not mean any sort of denigration to these species of pipe smokers.  They are the foundation upon which our art and tradition is built.  Rather, my question is: what makes us nearly obsessed with pipes.  Obsessed may be a strong word, but for some of us – and I am including myself here – it is more accurate than not.  What zeal drives us to learn the history and inner machinations of Dunhill?  Or the artistic progression of the Danish movement?  Or the architectural differences between pipes from Cantu and Pesaro?

 

I ask these truly seeking comments for myself more than any rhetorical device.  I suspect that there are a number of factors, a few of which I will try to lay out below.

 

First, there is the thirst for knowledge.  Man – with a capital “M” to include women as well – is driven by innate curiosity.  At our very core, and directly above our fundamental need to compete, is the desire for understanding.  As a race we have compile libraries of literature and untold oral stories as to how we came into being and why we are as we are.  It is this fundamental drive to understand.  Drive to know something that pushes us to become encyclopedias of knowledge about our briar, meerschaum or other pipes.  We long to know something.  Because when we know something, it becomes part of us.  And we become the greater for it.  With the gaining of knowledge, we can place that metaphoric pin with a hair greater accuracy, to say that among the world around us, I am here.

 

And yet, this still doesn’t answer the fundamental question.  Yes, it does speak to why we learn such things, but it does not speak to why we would want to learn such things.  So, let us continue on. 

 

Perhaps we want to learn such things because we are drawn to the nostalgic aspect of pipes.  “Here is a great man, who smoked a pipe.  Let me emulate him and follow in his greatness.”  Or that the era when pipes were ubiquitous is some how romanticized.  And by learning the secrets of those bygone companies and makers, we might carry forward some small part of that past.  And yet, if this were the sole reason, why would some focus on the current crop of pipes and makers?  Clearly this facet of our desire has weight.  And yet I fear we are wandering away from the heart of the issue.

 

…the heart of the issue…  Now there is a direction that seems truer.  Perhaps we are so ensorcelled by our pipes, so driven to minutia of knowledge because they some how resonate in out hearts?  I can think of my favorite pipes, those of Anne Julie, and feel a tugging in my chest.  They reach out to me in such a sensual way…  To me, they are more than just pipes to smoke.  They are objects of beauty to love.  And what greater yearning can a man or woman have than to surround him or herself with beauty?  To immerse him or herself in that ethereal glow of beauty.  So that we ourselves may become more beautiful – my own present and outward curmudgeonly appearance aside. 

 

Yes, to me, this seems the heart of the issue.  We yearn beauty.  And for god knows what reason, we have found beauty in our pipes.  They are tangible and physical, unlike a painting.  They are tactile, unlike a poem or piece of fiction.  And they are portable, unlike a marble sculpture or bust. 

 

And in keeping with – in my humble opinion – our most deeply rooted drive, that of competition, we begin to collect these small wonders of form and function.  We hoard them, even if we do share our hoards with those of like minds.  We are proud of our collections, and feel good to know that such small beauties are nearby.  And as with – again, in my humble opinion – our second core drive: curiosity, we desire to learn about these objects.  The what’s, why’s, how’s and who’s of our pipes.  So that we might more deeply commune with the beauty that they hold for us.

Tags: Anne Julie, desire, learning, philosophy, pipe collecting, pipes, tobacco