Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to “do” death in the active and not the passive sense. And I do, still, try to nurture that little flame of curiosity and defiance: willing to play out the string to the end and wishing to be spared nothing that properly belongs to a life span. However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” —Christopher Hitchens Takes on Nietzsche: Am I Really Stronger? | Vanity Fair.
Post was last modified on 16 Dec 2011 10:13 am
Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.
The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.
After learning of his AIDS diagnosis, artist Keith Haring created the work, "Unfinished Painting" (1989),…
Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene…
Inspiration can come to those with the humblest heart. Caedmon the Cowherd believed he had…