At the age of 16 I first came across the words of Hunter S. Thompson: "A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is."
Living in a suburban neighborhood in southwest Portland, and attending predominately white, upper-middle class Lincoln High School, I was sitting pretty - relaxing in the slow, warm suck of those quicksands of security. That is until I was awakened by the Good Doctor - he wrote of life's glorious possibilities - the chase, the hunt, the hysterical safari in search of the great white whale, arteries wide enough for the passage of the Doctor himself.
Dr. Thompson - a brave warrior in those psychic battles of the 60s- the struggle for the meaning of the American Dream. What are we after - freedom or security?
Dr. Thompson, dead, at the age of 67, from self-inflicted bullet wounds. The last stop on life's proud highway. What can we take away from it? I'm not surprised by the suicide. What other way was there for the Doctor to go? Certainly not slow rotting in a hospital bed. He liked to mention taking plunges out of skyscrapers - out of penthouse and office suites - in his author's notes to collections of his stories and correspondence. Or taking a Ducati out on a dark and stormy night, and never coming back.
But Thompson always managed to catch himself, right there, at The Edge. "The Edge," Thompson wrote: "There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are those who have gone over," and not come back. Thompson teaches us to get to that place, that "place of definition," where you must either go forward, and fall, or step back. Only certain death is going too far. Who knows how many times Hunter Thompson looked over The Edge prior to Sunday night's "self-inflicted bullet wounds." It doesn't matter. His work and his life remind us that place is out there. We simply have to keep moving, and stay attuned.
Prior to killing himself, Thompson declared that we Americans now reside in a Kingdom of Fear. There is no hope for freedom in this new century, he declared. Security, freedom's enemy, has become our national pursuit, our fantasy.
It's easy to ignore this - the fear and loathing and transformation of the American Dream into a controlled state of worldwide security, living my current life in Portland, Oregon. In this beautiful, bike-friendly, left-leaning, small-business smitten Simpsons-episode of a city, the entire universe seems to take place between the Coast Range and the Cascades, north of Oregon City and south of the Columbia River.and it's not such a terrible picture.
Life here - as I sit on a Park Blocks bench under warm, February sunshine, with dogs and dog-walkers strolling by, and a homeless man successfully begging for change so he can go to John's Café down the street, and my own belly full with similar hashbrowns, eggs and toast from Fuller's Café up the street - sitting here, taking in this pleasant picture, life appears to be going pretty well. here in Portland.
But who in town is really interested in reaching that edge? Who here still yearns for it, like they did when they were 16? I don't. We've reached too delicate a balance of freedom and security here in Portland. Decisions about the Rose City's future permeate out of the power structure fully formed, impossible to penetrate. Ego and greed-driven propositions like the Pearl District and the "new" South Waterfront win again and again. Linnton, population 400, is slated for major re-development. Little Italy will appear before long - not a result of actual Italian immigrants, but the hard work of developers and tractors.
Yet, amidst all this, hip and resourceful Portlanders are free to dumpster-dive, work under the table, barter, Zoobomb, smoke grass, play in rock-n-roll bands, snort coke at after hours parties, protest the election results - all provided we play by a few simple rules. Namely: STAY AWAY FROM THAT EDGE! Keep the balance.
Is anybody, anybody in town riding point - taking their cues from Dr. Thompson? If you'd like to be, and you're not, take the Good Doctor's advice: Keep Moving. Always keep moving. Don't settle for balance. Shatter it, with style and grace. Yes. Very hypothetical - right?
Standing at The Edge we may achieve definition of this world we're living in. Portland, or anywhere. But you can't sit tight, managing the accomplishments you've already assembled. To see life as it really is, to live life as it really is, there is that looming challenge of freedom. Which, for Dr. Thompson, at age 67, came in the form of self-inflicted bullet wounds.