Light at the End of the Reality Tunnel

Here’s my new Arthur magazine column. I wrote it as the money was pouring in for Robert Anton Wilson.

As for Bob, he is somewhat stabilized – which would ordinarily be a good thing, except for the fact that it means he lost his access to hospice care, which requires you to be getting measurably worse. So it’s back to friends taking care of him unless and until something bad happens.

He and his daughter send their love to everybody, though.

“The Light at the End of the Reality Tunnel” by Douglas Rushkoff,
(Originally published in Arthur No. 25/Winter 02006)

This has been a very bizarre couple of weeks for me. I changed literary agents, did a bookstore discussion/debate with former Arthur columnist Daniel Pinchbeck, learned of Robert Anton Wilson’s dire end-of-life financial predicament, and then left my wife and 21-month-old daughter to fly to Germany (where I am right now, stuck in an airport thanks to a canceled flight) to give a talk to a big magazine conglomerate about what makes their publications relevant in a mediaspace fast migrating online.

And I’ve found myself alternatively inspired and unnerved, about each and every one of these events. I feel their connection on an emotional level — as if the microcosm in which I’m participating reflects a greater theme. Like an archipelago, this seemingly disconnected string of islands is all connected beneath the surface. And that connection is about how we make value — for ourselves and one another.

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