Musing on Directions I am taking
Most of you know that I love to read. At present, I am beginning to renew my acquaintance with Eric Hoffer, the American blue-collar philosopher who wrote a number of books on change, society, and extremism. Hoffer was an unusual man, spending much of his life on the road, sometimes as a hobo. Born in New York in 1902, Hoffer left the city upon the death of his father, a cabinetmaker. He moved to Los Angeles where he lived on skid row for many years while reading voraciously and occasionally writing. He decided to become a migrant worker, and during a winter, he became a gold prospector and was snowed into a cabin where he read the philosophy of Michel de Montigne and was impressed with his writings. From this experience and his migratory lifestyle, he became increasingly interested in the American underclass. Hoffer was not formally educated, but read voraciously: collecting library cards wherever he travelled. He finally settled in San Francisco in 1941, where he worked as a ...