The Quote.

Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

There you go: in a single sentence, Christopher Hitchens has summarized a principle that I always found difficult to express. Inquiries about why I "can't keep my mouth shut." now have a solid answer.

Letters to a young contrarian has had a profound impact on me. It has led me to question my own "resistance" to "popular culture" (read: Apple, energy drinks, and brand-name clothing), and has left me with a bitter taste that insists on recurring every time people dismiss my entire being as "a phase", whether directly and consciously or not.

My deepening respect for Mr. Hitchens though, has been made a sad affair by the most diabolical of medical maladies. If I understood his writing as it was intended to be interpreted, the odds of defeat seemed stacked against him.

One last challenge, it appears, for the face of contrariness and controversy the world round.