What is life - or - advice for the uninspired

All too often my posts are about work – about the goings on behind the scenes at CBS, or some other pretending to be witty comments on this wacky modern world we live in. Today will be a little different.

Back in February we lost one of the greatest journalists and writers the world has ever seen when Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. The world may never know his last words – he had an ESPN column and the last posting was about a new sport Shot gun golf – yet this months Playboy had the ‘last’ writings of Thompson. SO I went out and picked up a copy to read the last words, which ended up not really being last words but the last interview. In it Thompson talks about several things including life and how to live it, what kind of guns kill what kind of animals, and basically every topic from being a gentleman to what drugs mix with what.

There is one particular section of advice I want to paraphrase here- if you want the whole words you need to go buy Playboy – and that’s right your buying it for the articles not the pictures. Thompson talks about driving on a road late at night and at a high speed coming across a deer. The deer freezes gets the ‘deer in a headlights look’ and what do you as a driver? There are several options each a parable for life. You can slow down – slam on the breaks- and the front of the car dips – you slam into the deer which in turn slams into the windshield and car head on and you will most likely become a statistic another person killed by a deer. Or you can swerve, and end up slamming into a tree and once again causing your self harm but sparing the animal. Then there is the third choice – you stay at speed – or speed up hit the deer head on and it bounces up and over you – wrecks your car kills the deer but you remain unscathed.

Sometimes the best answer in life is to simply plow ahead full speed, you know there are going to be consequences, but of all the options in front of you – it is the best choice you got.