dougs digs

Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.

Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time. His son, Juan, found the body.

Thompson "took his life with a gunshot to the head," the wife and son said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News. The statement asked for privacy for Thompson's family and, using the Latin term for Earth, added, "He stomped terra."

Neither the family statement nor Pitkin County sheriff's officials said whether Thompson left a note. The sheriff and the county coroner did not immediately return telephone messages Monday.

Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

Thompson is credited alongside Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism -- or, as he dubbed his version, "gonzo journalism" -- in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.

Thompson, whose early writings mostly appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated as he reported on such figures as Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

In recent years, Thompson penned frequent columns for ESPN.com's Page 2 since its launch in November 2000.

Thompson also was the model for Garry Trudeau's balding "Uncle Duke" in the comic

The writer's compound in Woody Creek, not far from Aspen, was almost as legendary as Thompson. He prized peacocks and weapons; in 2000, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant trying to chase a bear off his property.

Born July 18, 1937, in Kentucky, Hunter Stocton Thompson served two years in the Air Force, where he was a newspaper sports editor. He later became a proud member of the National Rifle Association and almost was elected sheriff in Aspen in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner.

I was really moved by this blog post from Jason.

I think this is something most, if not all, of us in varying ways can relate to. Coming from someone who has devoted the majority of my adult life in trying to figure out what it looks like to know and follow Jesus; all the while studying and providing mental health counseling, I find this conversation very refreshing and encouraging. This type of 'nakedness', in my opinion, is necessary for the pursuit of living a healthy mental, emotional, and spiritual life.

Thank you Jason for emboldening me to strip down and hopefully get to a similar place of living 'naked’ for the sake of healthier relationships and enhanced life experiences.

Which film would Jesus most want us to see, and why?

Why did so many churches urge people to see Gibson's film, and why did so few (if any?) promote Terry George's film? What do our answers to that question say about us?

What were the practical outcomes of millions of people seeing Gibson's film? And what outcomes might occur if equal numbers saw Hotel Rwanda - as an act of Christian faithfulness?

In what sense could Hotel Rwanda actually be titled The Passion of the Christ?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocides were churchgoers?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of the Americans who ignored the 1994 genocides (then and now) were and are churchgoers?

What kind of repentance does each film evoke in Western Christians? Why might the kind of repentance evoked by Hotel Rwanda be especially needed during these important days in history?

continue . . .

The very foundation, i.e. didactical approach, of both my professional and educational (grad school especially) framework is the philosophy of approaching and experiencing life in the "here-and-now". I am convinced this is in direct opposition to our true nature, which is exactly why it is both difficult and necessary.

I was first exposed to the term and concept of living in the here-and-now through my education and training in Rogerian Therapy, named after the great Carl Rogers. If you are not familiar with Carl, get to be familiar; his conceptualizations of life completely revolutionized my understanding and approach. Carl had two classifications for functioning and operating in life, healthy and unhealthy. Unhealthy living is the absence of the qualities of healthy living (Carl also refers to this as "fully functioning"), which are:

1. Openness to experience - This is the opposite of defensiveness. It is the accurate perception of one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means being able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. Feelings are such an important part of openness because they convey organismic valuing. If you cannot be open to your feelings, you cannot be open to actualization. The hard part, of course, is distinguishing real feelings from the anxieties brought on by conditions of worth.

2. Existential living - (this is living in the here-and-now) Rogers, as a part of getting in touch with reality, insists that we not live in the past or the future -- the one is gone, and the other isn't anything at all, yet! The present is the only reality we have. Mind you, that doesn't mean we shouldn't remember and learn from our past. Neither does it mean we shouldn't plan or even daydream about the future. Just recognize these things for what they are: memories and dreams, which we are experiencing here in the present.

3. Organismic trusting - We should allow ourselves to be guided by the organismic valuing process. We should trust ourselves; do what feels right, what comes natural. This, as I'm sure you realize, has become a major sticking point in Rogers' theory. People say, sure, do what comes natural -- if you are a sadist, hurt people; if you are a masochist, hurt yourself; if the drugs or alcohol make you happy, go for it; if you are depressed, kill yourself . . . This certainly doesn't sound like great advice. In fact, many of the excesses of the sixties and seventies were blamed on this attitude. But keep in mind that Rogers meant trust your real self, and you can only know what your real self has to say if you are open to experience and living existentially!

4. Experiential freedom - Rogers felt that it was irrelevant whether or not people really had free will. We feel very much as if we do. This is not to say, of course, that we are free to do anything at all: We are surrounded by a deterministic universe, so that, flap my arms as much as I like, I will not fly like Superman. It means that we feel free when choices are available to us. Rogers says that the fully-functioning person acknowledges that feeling of freedom, and takes responsibility for his choices.

5. Creativity - If you feel free and responsible, you will act accordingly, and participate in the world. A fully-functioning person, in touch with actualization, will feel obliged by their nature to contribute to the actualization of others, even life itself. This can be through creativity in the arts or sciences, through social concern and parental love, or simply by doing one's best at one's job.

Pretty cool stuff, huh ?

What brought me to share this little bit of info and history about my foundation, is that I came across a great piece of literature today in regards to this very approach to life espoused by two other tremendous thinkers of modern history, Blaise Pascal and C.S. Lewis. The parallels and similarities among these three blew me away. It just reinforced the conscious discipline it takes to live and operate in the here-and-now. This what I came across by Blaise and Clive :

We are profoundly unaware of the present. That is, the here and now, the place that we always are, is the place that we are least likely to see for what it fully is. Blaise Pascal, though living four centuries ago, keenly diagnosed this peculiar human condition. In his work, Pensees, he masterfully articulates our seeming lack of interest in the present.

Writes Pascal, "Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."

That is a powerful proclamation, isn't it? The present is never our end. If this is true, Pascal's grim thought is worth examining. Though we hope and toil for life, we never really live. And indeed, looking back most of us can readily recall a particularly squandered time in our lives; a time we now wish we were more fully attentive, more fully present. Truly, the now of life is far more significant than we often realize.

C.S. Lewis once asked, "Where, except in the present, can the Eternal be met?" This is why the present is so profoundly important. You see, God is always nearest to us "now." Where Jesus says, "Follow me," where he pleads, "Come to me," there is both urgency and immediacy in his voice. Now is where he asks us to draw near; now is when we must decide to follow or not to follow; now is where we rejoice in this day he hath made. So indeed, seize the day, for the promises of the one who came in the fullness of time are boldly written upon this very moment.

My hope is that we all can realize the intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to live and function in the present. I pray for God to grant us his strength and wisdom to be disciplined enough to do so then we might truly be able to hear Him and each other.