HUNTER S THOMPSON

I guess most people have heard of this guy but don't know much about him. He is known for his unusual approach to life and has had as many memorable quotes as Oscar Wilde or William Shakespeare. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming WOW, what a ride!" "Being shot out of a cannon is always better than being squeezed out of a tube." "Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore?" And for a final quote..."It never got fast enough for me."

A number of years ago I learned in a self improvement seminar about the difference between core essence and the adaptive personality. The "adaptive" is the face you show the world and the way you have adjusted so that you wouldn't be beaten (punished) as a child. It becomes your default position for the rest of your life. We each individually learn to protect ourselves with a strategy and a set of skills that we rely upon through thick and thin BUT one that has a huge dark side. The things that protect us also hem us in and smother our core essence. For example, if someone formed a protective strategy in response to being considered irrational and too flighty, he might become hyper-rational, logical (see "The Logical Song" by Supertramp) and rigidly safe to please those who held the ultimate power over him. The antidote for this solemn fear of standing out too much or taking to many chances might include identifying the inner fear that you were "irrational" and in need of getting the Whack-a-Mole treatment as a vestige of you as a 2 year old and a script you no longer have to follow.

That is perhaps why a "loose cannon" like Hunter S. Thompson is so interesting to me. He either discovered his adaptive early and banished it or never was indoctrinated to begin with, or the way he conducted his life was the result of his protective adaptation. Maybe someone told him when he was a kid..."Go outside and play in the street and do wild and crazy things or Mommy and Daddy will not love you and feed you, and protect you, and you will die."