Thursday, June 26, 2008

It's been two years

Since this grouch passed away. His blog is still up and running. Someone's pulling old posts and posting every day. And I still go there every day. This is what I wrote when I heard the news:

The other people are individuals to the core, and you know when you meet them that there ain't anyone else in the world quite like this guy or gal. Put twenty people in identical clothing and identical haircuts, and you can still pick those other people out, because the sheer act of fitting in with everyone else is so alien to them that they just can't do it.

The other people know that you don't get rich, or famous, or achieve greatness by sitting on your front porch bragging about what you did in highschool. You find the highest peak you can, and start climbing it, because the reward at the top of that peak is worth all the risks involved. And if you only made it halfway there, you can at least look down at all the miserable pukes who didn't even try, and pity them. Or tell them where the hand-holds are. Or both. What if the Wright Brothers said "Nah, too risky!'? What if the Pilgrims said "You know, Greenland should be good enough don't you think?" What if Christopher Columbus had said "Turn it around boys, it's too risky."? But they didn't. They were the other people.

Rob Smith was one of those other people. You read his blog, and you didn't know whether to curse him out or laugh out loud. You looked at the things he did in life, and you had one of two thoughts. It was either A) "Oh hell, I wish I'd done that!" or B) "Did you mean to fuck it up that bad, or was it an accident?"

Never once did you read his writing and go "Meh. Whatever."

There's still nobody like him writing today.

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