Is there a difference between a habit and a hobby? Habit sounds bad, or at least unpleasant or gross in a bodily way. Doesn’t sound as bad as addiction. Unless you’re a real special person you’re probably not addicted to cutting your toenails. It’s just one of those base hygienic habits we all carry around. Not something I’d sweat through my shirt to get to do. Just a habit. Like tying a shoe. Something easy and comfortable that's done in a few unconscious ritual gestures which allows the mind to wander. That’s a habit.

Here’s something to talk about. Pipe Smoking: Habit or Hobby? It’s obviously a hobby, even if the pipe smoker doesn’t know it. He’s passionate about his pipe and about what he smokes and why and when he smokes even if the world doesn’t know this about him. This is a hobbyist’s passion; a worship of the details. The source is the smoke and from that everything is subsequent. This is where the habit is born.

The habit is a dance perfectly timed. Mastered after years of practice, it is evident in the way you browse through your carefully racked selection of pipes with the ease of a librarian, select your last pipe for the night, and rub-out a tricky flake set to dry the night prior. This is what you’ve learned from smoking. You’re dancing without thinking about dancing. As you smoke, now nearly unconscious of doing so, you are simply tasting the smoke, indulging the sensation, and allowing your mind to move fluidly, whether that be from task-to-task in an office, behind a treasured book, or with your very thoughts.

Pipe smoking is a habit the same as it’s a hobby. The words just look so similar. They’re related. Granted, the word habit tends to conjure a mindless autonomic process. But it’s a habit to think that way. If you keep up your hobby you will stop and adjust a habit and replace it with a new one. Explore your hobby relentlessly, examine your habit routinely, and in the process you refine a pipe-smoking craft.

While we are on the topic of exploring your hobby, we’ve got five dozen fresh estate pipes hitting the site tonight. Keep an eye out for something different. Also this evening we’ve available new works from Danish pipe maker Benni Jorgensen, American pipe-man Randy Wiley and the venerable Japanese firm Tsuge. Additionally, new pipes from Cavicchi and L’Anatra, as well as Ashton, Peterson, Stanwell, Johs and IMP are featured tonight. Big update.

Ted Swearingen: Sales Manager