Drifting on a highway

There is wisdom to be found in The Gonzo Papers.

Sean Hanson, Senior Columnist

Grey skies, a biting wind and dulled feelings. One long stretch until Spring Break. The sun teases us with intermittent flashes. Motivation is in short supply.

At this point in the new year, one begins anticipating what is to come in summer, if one has not already. Or, perhaps, directionlessness is the status quo, and primary functions are on autopilot. It could be forgiven; it is easy to be disdainful of crossroads, to not commit to any path.

For myself, aimlessness is a common instinct, and word of mouth from my peers tells me I am not the only one. There are mornings when waking brings only melancholy, a whole anvil of the stuff dropped square on one’s head. In times of stress, when charting my course feels like assembling an internal compass with an IKEA manual, I find it helpful to look to the lives of people I admire for inspiration. There is a chunk of wisdom that, though simplistic, echoes in the back of my mind in these flailing moments…

“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

That is gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and my friends can attest to my sometimes overbearing love for his writing. I have already praised his political analysis in a past column, but his work was much more than just lampooning the buggers in D.C. Some of my favorite writing of his can be found in the volumes of his compiled correspondence, in which he wrote edicts to live by.

“The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967,” is the first of two collections of Thompson’s letters written to a cast of characters from his heyday. The recipients include lesser known individuals like communist friends, high school buddies and past girlfriends, as well as standout names like Lyndon Johnson, Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe. The book contains the aforementioned quote, written in an advisory letter to a friend. Despite his young age during the period, Thompson was demonstrably wise for his years. 

I read “The Proud Highway” last summer at a time when I was reeling from a bevy of insecurities. I switched majors the prior semester and had yet to feel reassured in my choice. My social life had imploded for reasons that need not be explained here. I had failed to score an internship and returned to making pizzas for minimum wage. I turned to Thompson during these troubled days for a much needed dose of gonzo wisdom.

What I found in “The Proud Highway” was the record of a young man who endured hardships greater than any of my own for the sake of pursuing his dream of being a lauded writer. He would later succeed in this pursuit, but not without dragging himself through muck to do so.

The lesson I learned from him, and which affirmed my convictions during that summer, was that self-actualization is a jagged course. Our lives seem, upon reflection, to follow a deliberate path, in spite of our confusion in a given moment. Taking action is the game. Choosing a path regardless of trepidation—trusting the gut instinct—will win it. The direction one chooses may not always be the best one, but a person can say with pride that they had the self-respect to move of their own volition.

This sentiment may appear to some to be merely a stubborn, even cynical rule of a lonely individualist. I do not mean that a person must be a law unto themself, dispensing with others, but rather that when the score is final there is only yourself to account for how you played. Thompson says as much in one of my favorite passages from “Highway,” again doling out wisdom.

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

He also wrote that “all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it,” so maybe this is rubbish for some. I can only offer what has been a liberating notion for me, and a heck of a good book to read.