On the Passing of George Leonard

I am a child of the late 1960s but more of the early 1970s. I came too late to have an understanding of the meaning of the days of rage when they were occurring. I watched the battles of the Democratic Convention with the eyes of the young and uninformed. By the time Kent State happened I had a much better understanding of exactly how precarious the state of nation was at the time. Who I am is in great deal the result of the turmoil of that era.

As I have noted before I read the literature of the time, Vonnegut, Hesse, Bateson, Kesey and Kenneth Boulding. Apparently a noted voice of that era has died, George Leonard. I had heard of George Leonard because I had heard of Esalen. Kesey had talked about it and it had cropped up in some articles I had read in Rolling Stone. While I had heard of him but was not familiar with him.

In reading the New York Times today I came upon his obituary. Apparently Leonard came to Esalen initially as a reporter and then a convert. Surprising how such a seeker found his niche. I liked the last two paragraphs talking about Mr. Leonard and his relationship with Esalen. I print them here. They are not my words but I think they are good words. I think the last paragraph is pretty much consistent with what I have been saying for a long time. If you want to read the whole obituary the link is below the quote.

Esalen’s history is a mélange of seemingly unrelated events, people and principles: the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the cultural critic Susan Sontag, sensory awareness experiments, the nuclear war theorist Herman Kahn. Mr. Leonard said the unifying principle was, essentially, joy.

“How can we speak of joy on this dark and suffering planet?” he wrote in an early statement of Esalen’s purpose. “How can we speak of anything else? We have heard enough of despair.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us/18leonard1.html?ref=todayspaper