Timothy Leary came up in conversation a couple weeks ago, and I thought this was worth noting.

I was at a yacht club rum tasting event — if you follow my periodic blatherings, you will remember that this was the event during which I consumed more rum than I had previously ever consumed. That may have sounded sensational, but I’m rarely a rum drinker. So four shots probably would have been a lot for me. I had way more than four shots by the end of the night.

Anyhoo, early in the event, I was introduced to a local singer-songwriter. Since I’ve always been one to befriend performers, after a few shots I struck up a conversation. My first question, “what kind of stuff do you write about,” resulted in an answer with some intensity, so we kept at it, and somehow we ended up trading Timothy Leary quotes back and forth. Well, I threw one out there, and she threw one back, which is I guess a bit rare nowadays. So that was impressive. So at some point during the conversation when she mentioned a recurring motif in peoples’ lives of the “fear of death,” I casually remarked that Leary wasn’t afraid of death. She replied, with the same intensity and utter sincerity, “No, he was afraid of life!” *

Wow. Mind=blown. Now I’m going to have to reread all my Leary stuff with that as my mantra.

* At least I think that’s what she said.