Aldous Huxley

I guess you're all wondering who I've chosen... it's Aldous Huxley. I chose him because he did drugs and admitted to liking it. He did not lecture about how it screwed him up, probably because trying a drug does not actually screw you up, getting addicted does.
Huxley had somewhat of a depressing life, so he is allowed a vice. When he was fourteen his mother died, which most people don't realize that in itself can impact a person tremendously. If that was not enough he went partially blind two years later. He was able to regain some sight in one eye and learned how to read braille, and to me, this shows a lot of character. However, he was unable to pursue what it was he really wanted to do, become a scientist or fight in the front lines of WWI. This must have been hard on him seeing as how his grandfather and brother were both biologists. Huxley decided to follow in his father's footsteps it seems with becoming a writer.
Aldous Huxley's first works were satirical/cynical pieces on society. After that he started writing about fictional places, which is somewhat ironic as he states in The Doors of Perception that he is not very imaginative. Writing about places that do not exist and so vividly as if you had been there not too long ago must take quite some imagination. Toward the latter part of his life he became known as a guru for Californian hippies (keep in mind this is the fifties and sixties). He experienced and wrote on mescaline and after trying LSD showed some interest in Hinduism, but then again who wouldn't. Not too surprisingly as his life started out depressing it too ended that way. His house and papers were burned down in a bush fire. Two years later he died but has left a lasting impression as it has been almost forty-five years since he passed and we are still studying him.

"Half of the human race lives in manifest obedience to the lunar rhythm; and there is evidence to show that the psychological and therefore the spiritual life, not only of women, but of men too, mysteriously ebbs and flows with the changes of the moon. There are unreasoned joys, inexplicable miseries, laughters and remorses without a cause."
-Aldous Huxley