Do Not Go Gentle Unto That West Coast

According to the thinkers, how we are measured by whoever is doing the measuring lies in no small part in how we handle adversity. It’s called “grace under pressure”, as Hemingway liked to tell his poor wife Martha it while he shot down adorable zebras from the back of his rented Jeep.

We see it in Hemingway’s own Catherine Barkley, protesting mildly as she bleeds to death on a Swiss operating table. We see it in Oscar Wao, standing in the sugar cane, losing everything and yet finally a man. We see it in Rubashov, holding to his flawed ideals even with the pistol pressed to his temple. We see it in Hector, pitted against the Gods themselves, thinking only of the honor of his burial.

We see it in all these cases and a million more, the plight of every man and woman caught in conflict with an unfeeling and unyielding world, and knowing themselves in their defeat.

And we see it in Cyborg Tommy Hanson, caught in his own tempest, raising his cry against the heavens:

NO

— CYBORG HANSON TOMMY (@CyborgHanson48) November 30, 2012

And for a full minute, the timelines of everyone on Twitter were filled with naught but the hollow echoes of Cyborg Tommy Hanson, who finally learned what it is to be a man.