The passing of the torch

This is a repost of something I wrote in my own blog.


Robert Anton Wilson has left the building.

I add my voice to the chorus -- what now?

I find the timing a bit disturbing. Just the night before, I followed a compulsion to write some things down.

Forgive me, Papa Bob-
I went and turned you into an Idol (for a while, anyway)
In doing so, i swallowed whole a delightful menu...

Maybe I took "maybe" too far.

Ever go to that place that feels like the existence of,
say, a dog, is no more or less certain than the existence of
the IPU (invisible pink unicorn), or Eris,
or a 9/11 conspiracy, etc?

Oh, Bob, poor Bob, he warned against this-
Even going so far as to print a
CONTRACT
at the beginning of TSOG!

Let's take a looksie...

1. The author of this book hereby warrants and gives assurance that the readers have no obligation to believe everything-- or anything-- in it. Nor does he hope to reveal the absolute & final truth about any topic discussed.

2. Readers must warrant and give assurance that they will not believe or disbelieve any part or parts of this book until they have given some time to careful examination of such a part or parts; and that they will file everything herein under "maybe" until or unles slowly arriving at "true" or "false."

I looked up from reading that just now and saw Papa Bob, in my living room, pointing a frail arm in the sky and intoning
(in that delightful laughing voice of his)

"Think for yourself, schmuck!"

And Korzybski chimes in:
There are two ways to slide easily through life:
To believe everything or to doubt everything.
Both ways save us from thinking.

And there's the Buddha-
My teaching is a raft whereon men may reach the far shore
The sad fact is that so many mistake the raft for the shore

I read these things and I feel that I know them, deep within me.
So why do I continue to make the mistakes?

And I know all kinds of crazy shit, but what am I doing with it?
Am I living it?
Am I spreading it?
Am I setting an example with it?

Nevermind what everyone else does -
I can no longer justify my lack of action by rationalizing
that someone's out there doing what I'm too
bored and disinterested and lazy to do anything myself.

And if I can't find meaning for myself, then what will propell me to action?
If nothing else, I feel I owe it to Bob to do something other than go about the motions of a life.

Papa Bob, I'm sorry that my own weaknesses and "buttons" kept me from your company so much.
I'm sure that it didn't bother you much, as you were with so many who love you.
I guess I'm more sorry to myself than to you, actually.

I'm sorry that I take the easy way out, that I avoid confrontation, that I don't stand for anything.
I look back at 10 years of comfortable, monotonous, lazy life and say to myself -
"What now? Are you gonna let another decade go by before you decide to do something?"

Thus ends the piece I wrote just hours before he took off from this earth.