Restless Idealism, Impending Doom
I recently reread The Rum Diary after years away from it. This line in the prelude grabbed me:
“Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser… It was the tension between these two poles—a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other—that kept me going.”
Hunter S. Thompson had a way of expelling the human condition in one jagged breath. That tug-of-war between optimism and futility, between believing we’re making progress and knowing we might be kidding ourselves.
Reading it again now, I felt the familiarity of that pull. Every creative person I know carries it, the bright conviction that we’re on an honest road, paired with the lurking suspicion that it’s all a lost cause. Maybe that’s why Thompson’s words sting and comfort at once: he makes you feel less alone in the chaos.
For me, the takeaway isn’t to choose one side or the other. It’s to accept that tension as fuel. The pendulum swing between restless hope and creeping doubt is what keeps us moving. Maybe the only real mistake is trying to resolve it instead of learning to live inside it.