Trying to mourn Robert Anton Wilson
I suppose it was overdue. I knew last week already that he had died, and yet I waited to think much on it until today. His poor health hasn’t been a secret for some months now, so it wasn’t unexpected. But beyond that, it just seems like the wrong direction to mourn him.
He always advocated living fully, and said at times that he believed the time would come when we could live forever. I never bought into that myself, but his enthusiasm for such seemingly whacky ideas was contagious.
It’s a little trite to say that someone changed your life. Other people alter the course of my life nearly every day. But it isn’t often that a book makes me look at the world in an entirely different light. It’s rarer still when that happens twice with the same author. Illuminatus! in the summer of 1996 and Prometheus Rising a few years later both had a profound effect on my worldview.
The fact that I realize that’s a little crazy and I don’t care is further proof that I bought into RAW’s work more than most.
January 16th, 2007 - Posted in Books | |
