like “falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool of mermaids"

Hunter S. Thompson is dead. He's the guy that the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was made about - believe it or not, it was a true story. I remember watching that film three or four times over two days - it (and playing tetris) seemed the perfect corollary to a post-wisdom tooth pulling, pharmaceutical binge.

That was my introduction to Thompson and pretty much all I ever found out about him, apart from a conversation once in high school with a friend who had read some of his articles.

Reading his obituary in the Economist was a reminder to me of how precariously silly the seriousness I invest into life is. I stare at the things around me, I stare at the Next and I wait to see what will happen, wait to pounce and make sense, I wait for an opportunity to prove my relevance by keeping sober and awake for the moment. Meanwhile I decay and become a tyrant over self and others.

Thompson had something to say - it would be a shame to reduce him to a nonsensical, drug abuser.

"Journalistic objectivity was a nonsense to him; he threw it away, and turned his gaze on himself." - The Economist.