I’m still upset by the passing of Christopher Hitchens; author, philosopher, erudite champion of the working class, enemy of tyrants, hater of ignorance, dialectic anomaly, someone I never met.
Hitchens was someone whose boisterous, peremptive, larger-than-life personality seemed poised to overtake any illness or challenge, regardless of how ridiculous and illogical that may have seemed to the various portions of the brain that provide the faculties of critical thinking and reasoning. That’s how powerful his intellectual contributions were to our world. He made us think, no, believe that he was a Homerian hero; a fixture, not a man.
But he was a man. An extraordinarily gifted man.
Many articles have been published before and after his passing which discuss his ability to smoke and drink us all under the table while effortlessly writing a few thousand words on the most complex topic, straight from his mind, at the speed of typing; never a braggart, a friend to every man. I won’t (and can’t) adequately discuss these things. They’ve been covered to the point of banality. What I will say is that he is one of a very few who truly mesmerize me in print and in debate. His ability for discourse equaled his ability to think. That mind. That voice. What a powerful, Orwellian combination. He had the intellectual equivalent of a nuclear arsenal, and he wielded it only for the enlightenment of those around him.
To describe him further risks the use of cant, overused and mostly meaningless metaphor. But his life and impact on lives makes the use of such phrases strangely appropriate. And so, he was a transformative figure. I’m sorry to see him leave us. But I’m equally happy to have been able to see him actively transform those lives, of which one was my own. He once said, “Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” It was his life; his raison d’etre. He feared the inability to write more than chemotherapy, more than radiation treatments, more than losing his voice, and more than the threat of an impending death. So he wrote, and wrote, and wrote, through all of it, right up through his last days, transforming lives every step of the way.
His legacy will surely be one of continued transformation through his many works, as it should be. Would he have it any other way?
Thank You, Christopher Hitchens
I’m still upset by the passing of Christopher Hitchens; author, philosopher, erudite champion of the working class, enemy of tyrants, hater of ignorance, dialectic anomaly, someone I never met.
Hitchens was someone whose boisterous, peremptive, larger-than-life personality seemed poised to overtake any illness or challenge, regardless of how ridiculous and illogical that may have seemed to the various portions of the brain that provide the faculties of critical thinking and reasoning. That’s how powerful his intellectual contributions were to our world. He made us think, no, believe that he was a Homerian hero; a fixture, not a man.
But he was a man. An extraordinarily gifted man.
Many articles have been published before and after his passing which discuss his ability to smoke and drink us all under the table while effortlessly writing a few thousand words on the most complex topic, straight from his mind, at the speed of typing; never a braggart, a friend to every man. I won’t (and can’t) adequately discuss these things. They’ve been covered to the point of banality. What I will say is that he is one of a very few who truly mesmerize me in print and in debate. His ability for discourse equaled his ability to think. That mind. That voice. What a powerful, Orwellian combination. He had the intellectual equivalent of a nuclear arsenal, and he wielded it only for the enlightenment of those around him.
To describe him further risks the use of cant, overused and mostly meaningless metaphor. But his life and impact on lives makes the use of such phrases strangely appropriate. And so, he was a transformative figure. I’m sorry to see him leave us. But I’m equally happy to have been able to see him actively transform those lives, of which one was my own. He once said, “Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” It was his life; his raison d’etre. He feared the inability to write more than chemotherapy, more than radiation treatments, more than losing his voice, and more than the threat of an impending death. So he wrote, and wrote, and wrote, through all of it, right up through his last days, transforming lives every step of the way.
His legacy will surely be one of continued transformation through his many works, as it should be. Would he have it any other way?