Whether you think of Nietzsche or Kanye West when you hear the line “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”—you probably think of it as true. Or at least I did. Short term struggle builds long term strength. Even life’s toughest experiences have a redeeming quality inasmuch as it instructs or inspires or hardens or softens a person in the right away. Etc.
Christopher Hitchens is dying of cancer. He’s undergoing radiation. In Vanity Fair he reflects on the maxim that I took as…
