Christopher Hitchens, for those who don’t know, is an author and a journalist of ill repute. He’s said and done some rather scandalous things in his career. He’s a bit controversial. Here is the guy who supports the Iraq war, but was water boarded for Vanity Fair and declared it –without a doubt — torture.

Here is also the man with esophageal cancer.

From a selfish standpoint, that’s an unholy bummer. He’s very intelligent and well-written. He’s level-headed and thoughtful. He is tough, but yielding.

From his standpoint…Jesus does that suck? I can’t even think about it. It harshes my mellow to the final degree. How can people even stand knowing? How does the knowledge alone of the thing not kill us?

He writes about his ordeal here, in Vanity Fair. He writes about it so well, it makes me want to call everyone I know and tell them I love them because, you just never know. You know?

Myself, I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.

Bluh. Only read it if you’re in the right head space. Otherwise, it will just blow you out. But do read it. And send good vibes his way.