In memoriam

This morning, I got into work after a hectic week of traveling to face some very bad news. The most impressive man I met in my days as a teenage prodigy died last week, in circumstances which can only be described as painful.

He was a mentor, a grandfather figure, an acerbic wit, and thinking back, for a man with an immense, long-standing global reputation in his field, why, in the name of everything that is holy, did he spend so much time with me, as a 19-year old, trying to teach me the subtleties of things that I am still trying to fathom out.

In his retirement, he suffered a serious stroke, which paralysed the left side of his body for a while, and from which he progressively recovered. He became a lecturer in Nietzchean philosophy to those of advanced years. I challenged him on the choice of Friederich Nietzche, because of the pain and suffering that his view of the world had caused. Why not someone like Spinoza, equally disconcerting to someone of a literalist bent, but much more humane. He was of the view that Nietzche was much maligned, particularly because his sister took to editing his works posthumously.

Posthumous. A difficult word of which to face the implications. Damn it Jeremy. I'm going to miss our little talks. Requiescat in pacem