THE DANGER OF SELF WORSHIP

In February of last year noted left-wing journalist Hunter S. Thompson took his own life. He staged the whole event to create the maximum impact on his family and friends, and to totally devastate his wife. He rang her up, chatted lightly, promised to see her when she got home and then blew his brains out while still on the phone. Fortunately she had rung off before he performed the "coup' de grace".

I discovered this story while flicking through an old edition of "Rolling Stone" magazine, a periodical to which he was a frequent contributor, and I couldn't help comparing his story with that of another famous philospher and writer: Ernest Hemingway (a major inspiration for Thompson). Both men lived without God, both men felt possessed of a wisdom and insight into the essence of life that transcended the bland, pedestrian awareness of "mere mortals" and both men chose to blow their brains out rather than deal with the challenges inherent with the twilight of life. What Gives?

History suggests that such self-destruction is the natural outworking of an existence where the place of the one true God has been taken by one's self. When you replace God with yourself you will soon become disillusioned with the limitations of this false God. Inevitably you will turn your back on this lesser spiritual entity and apostasize yourself!

In the case of Hunter S. Thompson it wasn't enough that he self-destruct. His insatiable ego insisted that his exit include as much collateral damage as he could orchestrate. He had to leave a legacy, an image of himself that others could continue to worship beyond the grave. He couldn't live with the truth of his frail, twisted, decadent humanity so he killed himself to create a myth that others could revere, and revere thay have.

Rolling Stone magazine spent most of that edition not only remembering his life but celebrating his death, as if it was the honourable act of a great human being. They enlisted the aid of actors, jounalists and authors to eulogise his passing. People such as Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp, Tom Wolf et al. shared anecdotes of Thompson's (at best) provocative, and (at worst) sickeningly offensive behaviour as if they were priceless heirlooms to be treasured forever. Nobody interviewed his wife, nor referred to his final "gift" to her.

Lost, self indulgent, egocentric souls such as Nicholson, Depp and Wolf will continue to revere the lives (and deaths) of people such as Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson because doing so justifies theirs.

Self-worship can only lead to self-destruction and celebrating it is a pathetic way of distracting from the hopelessness of a life without the one true God.

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."