(Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)
The sudden news of the death of renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking set in motion what usually happens when someone important dies: exceedingly reverential bleating. Why not celebrate the thing that made him most human?
Stephen Hawking just died, surrounded by family and friends, after a long and arduous, yet fruitful life burdened physically since his 20’s, a victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known colloquially as ‘Lou Gehrig’s Disease’.
Being surrounded by family and friends as you spend your final moments surrounded by family and friends is surely something none of us want, yet would love to have.
Death is funny that way.
Nobody wants to die, but when it comes, everyone hopes it comes while comforted by loved ones. And then from there, people, far and near, known and unknown would sing your praises, to share with the world (often ad nauseam) just how integral the recently deceased was to the fabric of reality, much less our collected consciousness.
To what end?
I choose to remember Stephen Hawking as a poon hound because that makes him human and if he is human, then his genius, his intellect is also human, and can be both replicated and improved upon. It means we have a chance.
A man has died, and no matter who he was, or how he lived his life, the race is on to deify him, to strip him of his mortal remains and wrap the cloak of immortality about him, where the goal is memory of our idea of who he was as opposed to those mortal realities that makes mortality the thing we fear the most and only regard when it is coming to an end.
But in the middle of this instant eulogizing of who we think Stephen Hawking was, it is, at least to me, more important to remember Hawking for who he was beyond the astrophysics and lifelong neurodegenerative disease.
He was a giant poon hound.
That’s right Stephen Hawking, renowned scientist and beloved member of the rarefied upper class of genius, liked his strippers. This isn’t conjecture or fake news, it’s a well-documented fact. Hawking has been seen and photographed in a number of exotic clubs, both in the U.S. and Great Britain. Hawking also wasn’t afraid to show it, taking pictures with other patrons and club owners.
Now before you click your tongue and shake your head thinking that this is meant to knock the good doctor, not at all. In fact, it is this notion that Hawking enjoyed having his motionless (but clothed) body on a bed to be writhed upon by nude women 40 years younger than him which makes him the most human.
For a moment, let’s set aside everything we feel we want to say about strippers and the sex industry and a man being a man which is usually in pursuit of objectifying women, and look at his vices as part of what is truly lost here, a human being, because sex and sexuality is a human endeavor that should never be looked down on so long as it hurts no one else.
Through his books and interviews, we know Hawking as much as we can know anyone who we really don’t know. In this, we only seek what we need to know in order to place him above or below us intellectually. But as we do that, we often fail to grasp the subtle nuance that the death of such a man really means.
Not much.
Not much in that we have most of what we were ever going to get from Hawking. Even if he continued to learn, well into his 80s or even 90s, he would only be learning at the rate and with the parameters of the time in which he lived. Hawking wasn’t privy to education that the rest of the world (with specific exceptions, of course) wasn’t. He couldn’t see into the future, and had no guarantee that any of his theories or beliefs were uniquely valid.
Yes, the man was a genius, but what made him so is what makes all intelligent people…intelligent. It’s the ability to perceive, plain and simple. It’s in this that Hawking ultimately isn’t special just because we needed him to be. His innate curiosity, his desire to know more and accept, even more so through his limitations, that our thoughts, our ability to learn and grow can transcend our physical selves.
The point is that anyone can do what he did if they only tried, and while that automatically leads to failure for many, it won’t for everyone, which is important.
I choose to remember Stephen Hawking as a poon hound because that makes him human and if he is human, then his genius, his intellect is also human, and can be both replicated and improved upon. It means we have a chance.
Stephen Hawking saw the universe in a way most either never thought they could, or refuse to believe is even possible. Let his death shine a light somewhere else, in someone else. We live in a time where the pursuit of intelligence is increasingly frowned upon by those who think weapons of death are more important than the nurturing of young minds.
I don’t lament Hawking because he’s dead. That doesn’t really matter. We have one less genius in the world, even though we have the capability to replace him with so many more young thinkers. Let the man die, but don’t turn him into a god. When you do that, you create a space between him and the potential geniuses of tomorrow.
Knowledge is for everyone, and every minute we waste thinking the right thing is to look smart and cultured by lamenting someone who embraced and pushed his intellect more than the rest of us ever could fathom is a generation wasted.
It is comforting to know Hawking liked strippers. It makes him a guy. It means any guy, anyone can chase the knowledge he chased, and with a little effort, understand it in a way that can be shared with others.
Like the cycle of life, the cycle of intelligence must never end.
See you at the titty bar.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet