When I was young, it was still possible to safely “hitchhike” anywhere. It was encouraged among your peers as a respectable form of travel. You could be devoid of a means of transportation, such as a personal car, and yet still be “cool and attractive.” Traveling with female companionship was an added plus, greatly easing the waiting process. The most important feature was your physical stance and the strength and tenacity of your outstretched thumb. A limp and unimaginative thumb, held in a weak and indeterminate manner, slowed the entire conveyance process or “pickup.” If, however, you stood like Vespasian (1) approving or disproving the performance of a fallen gladiator, your wait time significantly decreased.

From the earliest ages, we are inundated with waves of emotion, doubt, fear, and anxiety. It is as if we are caught in a harrowing maelstrom. It soon becomes self-evident that how we manage this tempest, and the way we protect ourselves from the cold of an emotional winter, dictate the life that we will lead. There are those individuals who experience life not as a distant winter with its apprehension and existential angst (1) but as a blistering summer. These individuals are overwhelmed with a pace and intensity that pulls them in countless directions at once. This is your great friend, with such intelligence and passion that he should be successful and world famous, but in the end succumbs to alcohol, drugs, or bad relationships — and dies at an early age. Such a tragedy!