Truth be told, my connection with Hitchens is rare indeed. His death today feels like a loss of the wise, intellectual, truculent grandfather I never had. I can only hope that some day I can provide a fraction of what Hitchens provided me to my own progeny (and to others, if possible). I’m not going to write any more of a tribute to Hitchens in this post. I cared a lot about the man and will continue to read, watch, and listen to everything he ever put out. His books will grace my shelves for my own eternity. But this post is about something long overdue; my writing.

While I could never accept any form of the title of this post as an actual reality, it is nevertheless, how I feel. I feel guilted. One of the greatest writers of our time passed away today, and I haven’t even been able to bring myself to write a regular weekly blog post because of thin excuses that I’m too busy, or that “it won’t be worth to put online”. I  have been in a form of self-paralysis for far too long. This post is an apology I owe to my biggest critic; Me.

I haven’t written much other than semi-inspirational status updates on Facebook (many of which are merely collected quotes — Winston Churchill once said “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations…. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts.  They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more. ” — but I digress) in a little over two years. Why haven’t I written? What made me stop, what made me put a moratorium on the only creative outlet that has ever truly appealed to me? For that…we need a history lesson, to fully come to terms with myself.

My previous forays into writing were forced, and relatively immature. Papers in school, some of which I had fun with but never had a proper mentor to cultivate what I think I’m, at the very least, not terrible at. Upon graduation I also graduated to the blogosphere, and, who are we kidding, who hasn’t at some point? I mostly blogged about humorous anecdotes, or rants and raves about this trend or that trend. Like I said, fairly childish. No world events, no serious thought, only the sort of thing you would see on Tosh.0, really — which is kind of horrible.

I stopped writing for that blog about the same time I started working at a technology company when I was 24 and living in Tempe, Arizona. I don’t know why I stopped, I just did. I am sorry. I guess I got caught up with that being the first “real” job I have had after graduating. I worked, I went to the gym, I went out to the bars, I tried to meet women, I spent a lot of time playing video games, almost no time reading, and definitely no time writing. Shortly thereafter, I decided I wanted to work abroad, so I moved to Korea. I started a travel-blog there, as almost everyone with a semi-creative-mind who ventures overseas tend to do, but quickly became disillusioned with the idea. It seemed too trite, too pedestrian. I thought: “I’ll just be writing the same shit everybody else will. Traveling to the same areas. Writing the same words. Explaining the same cultural phenomena.” If I can paraphrase one of my close friends, Cory Albertson: “That should be added to the website “Stuff White People Like: Teaching English overseas and writing a blog about it.”

And he was absolutely right. This put another stifle on my writing. I thought I had nothing original to contribute. I figured I would never “be famous”. I’m just a regular guy. What can I offer?

I still don’t really think I have a lot to offer, and I don’t have a lot of confidence when it comes to my writing. But aspiring to be a famous writer should never be the point. One should write simply just because they want to write. And I desperately want to, now, more than ever. Even if it’s just a book review. Even if it’s just a breakdown of an important emotional milestone in my life, that I’m only writing for myself. Or, in cases such as this, even if it starts as a eulogy for a friend and inspiration who you never met.

Christopher Hitchens never knew me, but I certainly knew him. And I think that if I would have ever been lucky enough to meet him, and tell him my whiny little story, he would say something akin to “I think you should stop being a coward and write about whatever you want. It’s quite simple, really. Or, don’t. It is your life”. — At which point he would turn around and order himself a Johnny Walker Black.

Christopher Hitchens once said something, while writing about his cancer (I believe in Vanity Fair)  that cemented itself in my synapses more than any other quote. It continually helps me to remember my place in the universe, and the best way to go about dealing with it:

To the dumb question ‘Why me?’, the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: ‘Why not?’

This quote, to me, is more than just the philosophical ponderings of an atheist who clearly sees that everything doesn’t happen for a reason. It serves to remind me that none of us are always going to be on top, and there are people being hurt, or getting sick, or in-general having bad things happen to them for, simply put, no good reason at all, all the time. This is the way of the world, and, in all likelihood, the universe. Rather than despair and wallow in self pity, we should try and be kind to one another, and help each other whenever we can. The coldness of the universe should be the atheists creed.

Because we’re all in this together, and help certainly isn’t going to come from anywhere else.

We will miss you, Christopher.