Hunter S. Thompson was ahead of the curve with gonzo journalism – a style of truth-telling designed for people who are afraid of the truth but still need to hear it. With all of Thompson’s wild antics and neurotic substance abuse, he is among the greatest writers the 20th century every produced.
So, where is he now?
Technically speaking, Thompson’s ashes are most likely a part of the soil of central Colorado. His body was cremated on August 20, 2005, after he committed suicide five months earlier at his Woody Creek property at the age of 67.
Perhaps in a Volvo with blue leather seats, a McIntosh amp, and a fifty watt boom box on his way to Washington D.C.
Perhaps in a red convertible going a hundred miles per hour with the top down on his way to Las Vegas, Nevada.
One thing’s for sure, sobriety would not look good on him. Whoever is traveling with him better remember to pack at least a dozen bottles of Chivas Regal whiskey and a few dozen grapefruits.
AI-generated image of myself stylized as Hunter Thompson.
A belief in something larger than yourself is necessary to tame the ego.
Faith is the embarking on a journey to find God through a desire to do God’s will.
For an increase in faith, hope, and charity.
God, in Your goodness, restore our hope. Where we feel imprisoned, break our chains. Where we feel discouraged, bring us light. Where the ground feels dry, break through with life anew. Amen.
We are now six years past the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Six years past a pandemic with a mortality rate of .04% (per 1,000,000), for which we shut down the country for a year, and we are still recovering from issues related to our global supply chains. However, approximately 18 million Americans took up gardening as a hobby during the pandemic including many millennials. I think that is one positive outcome from the pandemic. More people are realizing just how dependent we all are on external sources of food. Perhaps it’s time for a revival of tradition, a rejection of particular aspects of modernity, and a return to traditional self-sufficiency.
In the words of hip-hop artist Killer Mike: “We brag on having bread but none of us are bakers. We all talk having greens but none of us own acres. If none of us own acres and none of us grow wheat, then who will feed our people when our people need to eat?”
What are some small, practical steps every American can take to become more selt-suffcient?
I believe any step towards making ourselves more self-sufficient, no matter how small, is a step towards sustainability. It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of America with ten acres and a chicken coop, or in New York City with a studio apartment and a stockpile of bottled water.
Modern Humans Are Just as Close-minded as Our Ancestors
By Dylan R.N. Crabb
It’s amazing how people will twist their reasoning through a set of mental gymanstics so they do not have to question their ideology. Most of the time they don’t even realize that that’s what they’re doing. It’s as if, once a human mind settles on a particular view of the world, it develops mental blocks to protect itself against people from different tribes with rival viewpoints.
I think so-called “modern” humans are incredibly close-minded in our views of the universe. Principally because of two broad biases: the presentist fallacy (assuming that humans through all time periods think and behave in the same ways that they do today) and the prevalence of materialist philosophies in the wake of the recent decline in spiritual faiths. Today we too often assume that every human across time thought and acted the same way that we do today but that assume that the human mind is inherently logical like a machine. Humans are not inherently logical, we are intuitively rational. Rationality is not the same as logic. The human mind can be compared to a machine in the sense of the complexity of the biological processes and components forming our consciousness, but the human mind cannot be predicted with absolute certainty (regardless of what psychologist would have you believe).
If people prioritized spirituality over matter during the medieval period, I think it’s safe to say we’ve flipped the script (sociologically speaking) in the current-day. This is proven by the fact that there are billions of humans who are technically living in the most secure and most free societies ever created with more material comforts than our ancestors could ever dream of yet we also have the highest rates of negative mental health conditions we’ve ever seen. Humans today are literally living in way that would have been considered luxurious – even royal – hundreds of years ago and we are unhappy and unhealthy.
Material reality is fleeting and temporary yet humans today continue to prioritize the material (jobs, pleasures, living standards, etc.) over spiritual needs (a sense of purpose and/or belonging, family and communal ties, etc.).
Every society in human history has had an element of spirituality woven into its structure. Even in societies that proclaim themselves to be atheist or anti-religion like that of France in the aftermath of the 1792 revolution, they still worshipped something. A society’s ideals reveals what it holds highest or what it worships.
I think too many “modern” humans like to pride themselves on their lack of a religion while failing to understand what exactly a religion or what faith is. Just because one does not believe in a god or a spiritual deity does not mean that that person is mot worshipping something. Perhaps a person who does not realize he is worshipping something is even more dangerous than an openly religious person.
All I’m saying is, I think too many people today are too quick to dismiss ideas regarding spirituality on the assumption that spirituality does not matter. Similarly too many people are too quick to dismiss others who deviate from how they think. Every human being experiences reality through their own personalized perception, which makes communication at broader scales more difficult. It takes more effort the more people one tries to connect with – the more people one opens up to.
“Explaining Ancient Forbidden Teachings,” WhatIfAltHist (2024).
Creating order out of chaos is our purpose as humans. Against the chaos of nature, we develop routines and systems to survive. We build structures to keep us warm as well as to focus our minds, then we create routines for self-discipline so we can maintain systems of order across time.
If you are unsure of what to do, think about what you must absolutely accomplish today – that one thing that you cannot ignore any longer – and start there. Then keep building on that momentum. Develop a routine every day and create order out of chaos.
Spring has sprung, warmer days are on the horizon, and life is becoming more visible. We must take advantage of this warmth and this life to project positivity and hope throughout this world.
This world was created with purpose. YOU were born with purpose.
Entrepreneurship has been on my mind a lot recently so I’ve been diving head first into market research. While I may have lost an opportunity there are still plenty more and entrepreneurs do not make a name out of themselves by giving up easily.
The truth is, if you want to get rich (rich meaning doing what you want when you want), you have to find ways to generate multiple streams of income for yourself. No one ever got rich by working for someone else. You can either work for someone else and help them to reach their goals, or you can find ways to work for yourself and make your goals. You can either help someone else build their castle, or find a way to build your own castle.
Today, there are plenty of resources available for anyone to start a business either from scratch or by buying an existing business and refurbishing it, so get out there, and just do it.
I’ve always idolized Los Angeles. I spent the first 13 years of my life in Long Beach, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles. To me LA was glamorous, the pinnacle of success. Now that I’m grown, I’ve realized the unrealistic idealism in that childhood ideal.
I lived close enough to that city to see it as a part of the background for my home but I did not live in that city, so I did not see its ugly side. I think I was just fascinated by cities in general. Even today, at 33 years old, I have a fantasy in my mind about my ability to afford a home in LA being a sign that I “made it” in life. It’s not rational, it’s sentimental.
Living in Albuquerque for three years, I saw some of the aspects of city life that I idolized in the concept of Los Angeles as a child but I also saw the ugly side of city life – the atomized individuals with decreased community ties and the culmination of the “hustle & motivate” sub-culture of entrepreneurship (and everyone who falls short of that ideal into poverty).
Every city has an ugly side that tourists do not see.
President Donald Trump selected his running mate for vice-president this week, two days after he survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The United States Secret Service is now under a public microscope for their delayed response in finding Trump’s would-be assassin apparently being notified of the threat 30 minutes prior. If Trump had not turned his head at just right moment, the bullet would have hit its target more precisely, and the former president would likely have been killed. The big question his this: why didn’t the Secret Service secure the adjacent roof where the gunman fired at Trump?
Since the attempt on Trump’s life last weekend, the Trump Campaign has definitely been using the incident to their advantage (and why wouldn’t they?), and Trump supporters have been meme-ing the hell out of the iconic photo of Trump (always the showman) defiantly raising a fist for his supporters moments after a bullet clipped his ear.
That last one is a mash-up two stills from the film, The Mummy (1999).
The announcement of U.S. Senator JD Vance as Trump’s vice-presidential pick did not generate quite the same amount of buzz in news media by comparison. Nevertheless, the selection of this Yale Law alumnus, Iraq War veteran from the rust belt town of Middletown, Ohio, may help Trump’s popularity in some key mid-western battleground states.
Media pundits Sitch & Adam speak with amateur historian WhatIfAltHist on Trump’s attempted assassination and VP pick.
