I was watching a few of Evan Puschak’s “Nerdwriter” videos when I heard my own inner voice composing a thank you note to him. In the quiet of my mind, I told Evan that I have always found his analysis of literature, movies, music, photographs, and paintings to be incisive and insightful.
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Incisive
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Insightful
Those two words, back-to-back, hit me so hard that I stumbled and fell backward into a bottomless chasm of grief over the loss of Andrew Cross.
Evan Puschak is incisive.
Andrew Cross was insightful.
“Incisive” conjures the precision of a scalpel as it slices open a surface to reveal what is hidden inside.
“Insightful” describes the inner workings of intuition as it quietly assembles a mosaic in the mind.
I was going to say that I have a “parasocial relationship” with Evan Puschak and Andrew Cross, but then I decided that I should check to make sure that “parasocial relationship” means what I think it does. Here’s what Captain Google told me.
“A parasocial relationship is a one-sided, imagined connection or bond a person develops with someone they don’t know personally, usually a media figure or celebrity, often feeling a sense of intimacy or familiarity despite the lack of reciprocity.”
Yep. It means exactly what I thought it did. 🙂
This is Andrew Cross, the Desert Drifter.
“Years ago, I ventured into a canyon alone. I thought I saw something perched high on a cliff. I looked closer. It was an ancient ruin of some kind. I assessed the climb to reach it, and I backed down. It looked too intimidating, but I’m not who I was back then.”
“Nerdwriter” Evan Puschak has built a YouTube channel of 3.2 million subscribers over the past 13 years.
“Desert Drifter” Andrew Cross built a YouTube channel of 484,000 subscribers in just 13 months. Both men are 36 years old.
I continue to watch with anxiety as Andrew climbs impossible stone cliffs, hundreds of feet high, to examine the ruins of 1,000-year-old Native American cliff dwellings.
I never suspected that Death would be waiting for Andrew at the corner of 1st Street and North Avenue near his home in Grand Junction, Colorado.
While he was still with us, Andrew took hundreds of thousands of us with him – one at a time – as he explored remote places that few people will ever see. And he never failed to share his wonder:
“I had finally arrived. Arrived at what? Was the ruin itself what I was really searching for after all? As I looked around at the remnants of what once was, I pondered the reason I do all of this in the first place.”
“Confucius once said, ‘By three methods we may learn wisdom. First by Reflection, which is noblist. Second by Imitation, which is easiest. And third by Experience, which is the bitterest.'”
“These open desert spaces provide opportunities for all three of those. And they always beckon me to return. As long as I am able, I will answer their call, to discover more about myself and the people who have called this place ‘home.’ As you join me, my hope is for you, too, to find space for reflection, and the pursuit of wisdom.”
“Thank you for accompanying me on this journey.”
It was a delight to spend those hours with you, Andrew.
The world is smaller now that you are gone.
Roy H. Williams