Happy Independence Day! Let us all celebrate another year of the crumbling of an empire with Chinese fireworks and European owned "American" beer, while stuffing our faces with three pounds of hamburger meat. Cheers!
I realize that Independence Day in this country is one of (if not the most) cherished holidays we have. I could spend this whole blog talking about how we shouldn't be so celebratory over imaginary boundaries on a map, but I'm not. Instead, I would like to talk about another day, July 2nd, and how that should be just as important.
Why July 2nd? That is the day that Ernest Hemingway, arguably America's greatest writer, committed suicide. The man was the epitome of what is commonly referred to as a "bad ass". He was a soldier, boxer, bull-fighter, lover, and so much more. So, when he committed suicide it came as a shock to the world that the man who idealized "grace under pressure" folded under it.
For those of you who do not know about Hemingway's suicide, it is as poetic as the stories he wrote. One morning, he woke up, poured himself a glass of orange juice, sat it on the table, stuck a shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. His orange juice never touched.
Here is one of my favorite all-time quotes by Hemingway:
"In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused. "
Where am I getting at with all this? Hemingway wrote at the time what the world needed. His stories gave people a connection that allowed them to see that they were not alone in their troubles, their grief, their loneliness. On July 2nd, as I was reading a few of his short stories and drinking a nice, tall Guinness in honor of him, I couldn't help but think how badly we needed him now. Some of the older generations ( the Baby Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y), have rightly dubbed us the "Lost" generation. What do we have? We have no great war, we have no great music, and we have no great reformation on any aspect of our culture. Who are we? We believe that fame and fortune are just around the corner, that we will be the next big star, that we will be millionaires by the time we are 30. Well, sorry if I'm the first to tell you, but you're not. If you haven't realized it by now, but the only thing we have contributed to the world is "Jersey Shore" and the vast amounts of spin-offs from it. For that, we will forever be at the mercy of the gods.
I do not have some big rallying cry. I do not have any advice on how to change your ways, or to help you to feel not so lost. All I can do is lift my glass high in the air and say, "Here's to you Ernest. May you come back, finish your orange juice, and kick all of our asses."
P.S. The New York Times ran an op-ed piece about Hemingway that I think you should go and check out.
"My name is Kyle Hays. I drink wine on Thursdays, and Vonnegut lives in my pantry.
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