The thud of this kind of news sends me into what he left.
Metafilter points right to the incredible, crafted, ramble of his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech. DFW tipped off the seniors to the incoming “boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life.” He brought out all the imminent gray at the moment when one may be most “hypnotized by the constant monologue inside…” An important dose to have floating in the world, no matter when one commences action in it.
Last Friday, the rambling man commenced the end of his ramble. We’re bereft of how much he could have given to pull apart, apart from all he already did. Reading DFW’s speech last night, the thought bubbles up that there must have been, in his decision to hang himself, some clarity in all the gray matter. The way this turns my stomach around: both the thought and the sherlocking we do when one takes his life. Obituaries can’t give enough and yet we stare & stare into them. Stunned.
[Photograph courtesy of Steve Rhodes via Flickr]