In my early teens there were three writers which I devoured and that kicked off my reading adventures and fed my thinking: George Orwell, Hermann Hesse and Aldous Huxley.

Decades of thought and thousands of books later, I recently picked Nicholas Murray's biography of the latter. This is how he introduces Aldous:

"His life was a constant search for light, for understanding, of himself and his fellow men and women in the twentieth century. This intellectual ambition - not unknown but rare in English novelist - sent him far beyond the confines of prose fiction into history, philosophy, science, politics, mysticism, psychic exploration. He offered as his personal motto the legend hung around the neck of a ragged scarecrow of a man in a painting by Goya: aun aprendo. I am still learning."

Today, thanks to Bruce Eisner, I watched this incredibly prescient interview with Huxley dating back to 1958. From the decline of politics into personality, oil running out, and his thoughts on the shape of future dictatorships, this is well worth watching.