Conversation with an anonymous Digger
at the death of Hunter S. Thompson

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Me: Camus might have agreed philosophically with Hunter's last act - but I do not. Suicide is a cheap ticket on a sunken ship. For those of you who haven't been there - in life's next to last moment - there is always another way - either one can't discover it in time or one just doesn't care anymore because the pain of continuing to live is most simply too severe. I am a Buddhist and where the taking of one's own life-force is definitively a heathen's act with the end resulting in being instantly reborn - yep - to do it all over again. I for one made it back from there - so did others of us. Anyone can, but it take guts to stick around to get your job here in the material world done. I can't judge another man's choice in Camus' terms - but I don't have to appreciate it one bit.

[Anonymous Digger:] I feel chastened and agree his death is marred by the means that he arrived at it, I would point out that the degree of desperation it takes to go there is cause for commiseration if not total empathy.

Me: Perhaps this contrast in beliefs best expresses my feelings. Camus felt that we had one decision to make - whether or not to commit suicide, vs. Alan Watts who felt that: "the individual is an aperture through which God becomes aware of himself.

I agree with Alan - Hunter agreed with Camus.

[Anonymous Digger:] In most cases, this is a permanent solution for a temporary problem, but who knows what the situation was.

Me: Suicide is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

Life is suffering - no way around it
Life is joy - no way around it

Living is temporary
Life is eternal

Death is but a moment
Birth is but a moment

Everything happens at the same time
All time is NOW - Living - or Dead.

There is most essentially only one "situation" and we are all confronted with it every single moment of our earthly lives. Each Bardo has its own "situation" - body or no body. But hey, at least Hunter's death is generating perfect conversations across the globe. So perhaps this is his greatest act of Gonzo journalism yet!

[Anonymous Digger:] I hate to admit that I have never read Camus (yes yes, I have heard of him). I can see I've got some great reading ahead of me. When one is as cynical as I have become, his thoughts make me laugh with its truth.

He would have made a great stand up comic.

RIP - February 20, 2005

The Dr. Is Out © Paul Krassner

At Hunter's (a)Wake

The Final Copy