I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite cities!!!!
Feb 7, 2017 letter A Proverbs 7

treasure my careful instructions.
Do what I say and you’ll live well.
My teaching is as precious as your eyesight—guard it!
Write it out on the back of your hands;
etch it on the chambers of your heart.
Talk to Wisdom as to a sister.
Treat Insight as your companion.
They’ll be with you to fend off the Temptress—
that smooth-talking, honey-tongued Seductress.
___________
I wrote to Hefner in an earlier letter these words:
Don’t you see that Solomon was right when he observed life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and he then concluded in Ecclesiastes 2:11:
“All was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained UNDER THE SUN.”
Notice this phrase UNDER THE SUN since it appears about 30 times in Ecclesiastes. Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.
________

Hugh Hefner: A Life Wasted
Many hundreds of years ago there reigned a great and powerful King who had all the world at his fingertips. He had built a mighty Kingdom whose capital had become the center of world trade and his borders stretched from one corner of the known world to the next. Lacking in nothing, he truly had it all. A private zoo, a private navy, thousands of horses, immeasurable wealth, and no less than 1000 women to do with as he pleased.
In the end, the King reflected on all that he’d done in his life and concluded, “Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
I am of course describing King Solomon of the Bible and I quite suspect that the recently deceased Hugh Hefner’s life wasn’t all that different in the end.
Indeed, the above could just as well have described Hefner and the life he chose to lead. One that was filled with every pleasure the world can provide, particularly, loads and loads of women. Hefner spent the better portion of his early life building Playboy Magazine, a magazine that would go on to become the premier, “Gentleman’s Magazine” in the world. Featuring pornographic images of young, beautiful women alongside far less erotic editorials and articles covering everything from sports to politics. Hefner flat out stated in his later years that he wished to be remembered as a man who made an impact on sexual values.
In this, he certainly succeeded and not for the better. While Playboy was and is comparably tame next to some of the other magazines and pornographic content one can find on the internet today, it played a vital role in the mainstreaming of pornography and more casual sexual mores in American society. If your coworker is more comfortable talking about their sex life than their salary (and they are) then you have Hugh Hefner to thank. But if you’re also noticing a rising rate of depression amongst young women, increased confusion amongst young people about love and relationships, a declining marriage rate, and a rapidly growing pornography addiction epidemic with real world health consequences, then you also have Hefner to thank.
A major factor in Hefner’s and Playboy’s success was the way in which it marketed itself as a, “Gentleman’s Magazine.” Something read by not just refined men but by mature men. This impact has been felt throughout the world of so-called, “Adult Entertainment” and yet the science tells us that pornography such as that marketed by Hefner, actually has the impact of turning grown men into little more than children. Addiction works by affecting the brain’s reward centers and when we constantly choose to give into our desires in order to get that shot of dopamine running through our minds, we gradually weaken those portions of the frontal lobe responsible for willpower and self control. That is, when a man feels the desire to view pornography or crack open a playboy magazine, if he’s become addicted to it, then his willpower is going to gradually get weaker and weaker over time. Until, like a child, he has no impulse control whatsoever left.
In stark contrast with Solomon who, for all his many flaws, was incredibly wise; Hefner was deeply confused. Making such comments such as, “The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.”
Notwithstanding the fact that it was religion which got man to advance beyond his primitive status as a hunter-gatherer, who sometimes might use force to get the sexual mates they’d prefer (quite civilized huh Hugh?) it seemed that for Hefner sex had become life itself. Indeed, it had become his own private religion in a way. Perhaps as a way to fill a gaping void he felt in his own life.
King Solomon eventually grew to hate his life, in spite of his material success and, as many these days tend to do, turned to an addiction in order that he might escape from the gaping emptiness that had grown within his heart. In Solomon’s case, this turned out to be sex. “But King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;” (1 Kings 11:1)
Sounds a bit familiar huh? Almost like an eccentric old man who lives in a vast estate, wearing nothing but silk dressing gowns and constantly cavorting around with numerous scantily clad, if not outright nude, women. Perhaps, after his empire had been firmly established in the pop culture of America, old Hugh found that his vast wealth was not bringing him the happiness he imagined. It would certainly explain why he spent the final decades of his life focused entirely on surrounding himself with beautiful women and presumably bedding many of them. But, as Solomon so wisely observed in his own life, this was all but vanity. Just as a drug addict may discover that they can never have enough anymore to truly feel happy, old Hugh perhaps felt that he couldn’t get quite enough sex to be happy.
In the end, Hugh Hefner leaves a legacy just as we all do. Unfortunately, his appears to be that of accelerating the decline of the traditional family in America and the rise of sexual libertinism which has destroyed so many lives. In the end, Hugh Hefner will be, I think, remembered above all else as a man of great talent and vision who squandered his life away in the pursuit of empty vanities and who wrought great destruction on the culture of his day as he did so.
On June 6, 2016, I wrote a letter to Hugh Hefner that included these words:
In the article MAKE LOVE NOT WAR you asserted, “I had been promoting the basic premises that became the sexual revolution from the very beginning and from early 1960 with the Playboy philosophy…”
Hugh you are an universal man in a way since you have succeeded in business and are recognized throughout the world as a leader in the sexual revolution. However, have you found a lasting meaning?
Below are the comments of Francis Schaeffer on Solomon and the Book of Ecclesiastes:
Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.
We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:
1 Kings 4:30-34
English Standard Version (ESV)
30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. 32 He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. 33 He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. 34 And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.
_________________________
Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.
Ecclesiastes 1:3
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.
__________
The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
Hugh you have your sexual exploits just like Solomon did, but also you have thrown your efforts into your business too. Sadly Solomon also found the pursuit of great works in his labor just as empty. In Ecclesiastes 2:11 he asserted, “THEN I CONSIDERED ALL THAT MY HANDS HAD DONE AND THE TOLL I HAD EXPENDED IN DOING IT, AND BEHOLD, ALL WAS VANITY AND A STRIVING AFTER WIND, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
Hugh you have been under the impression that all of your efforts have been an effort to pioneer something new. But Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Hugh you remind me of Solomon because you are looking for lasting meaning in your life and you are looking in the same 6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20)…..HUGH do you agree with fellow universal man Solomon that UNDER THE SUN there is no advantage for man when he toils for the wind? Naked we all came into the world and naked we will leave.
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221
Hugh Hefner shows off a giant birthday cake to celebrate his 75th birthday as seven playmates look on in Cannes in 2001.
Hugh Hefner has died at his home in aged 91, Playboy Enterprises said. We look back on the life of the men’s magazine mogul in pictures.
READ MORE:
* Playboy founder Hugh Hefner dead
* Obituary: Hugh Hefner, visionary editor who created Playboy magazine
* Hugh Hefner’s son Cooper Hefner issues statement
What is Hugh Hefner’s legacy?
Share your stories, photos and videos.
Hugh Hefner is joined by former girlfriends Barbi Benton (L), and Holly Madison, during a party at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, California in 2005.
Hugh Hefner with a Playmate wearing skin-art of the 2002 Grammy Awards.
Hefner’s 79th birthday along with his girlfriends, Playboy Playmates (L-R) Kendra Wilkinson, Bridget Marquardt, and Holly Madison.
With wife Crystal Harris at Hefner’s annual Halloween Party at The Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 2012.
Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and girlfriends Anna Sophia Berglund, left, and Shera Bechard arrive at the Society of Singers annual dinner in Beverly Hills.
Hugh Hefner in 2002.
Hugh Hefner poses with his bride Crystal Harris.
Hugh Hefner in his famous hat.
Hugh Hefner and his Playboy bunnies.
The late Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner poses for a photograph in this September, 2003 photo.
Hugh Hefner , Playboy magazine founder, and Playboy Playmates and girlfriends arrive at the American Film Institute’s ‘AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Sir Sean Connery’ taping in June. 2006.
Hugh Hefner and his fiancee, Playboy Playmate Crystal Harris, at the opening night gala of the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.
Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner kisses girlfriend Kendra Wilkinson after their arrival for his 80th birthday party in a Munich club on May 31, 2006.
Featured artist is Wolfgang Laib

Wolfgang Laib was born in 1950 in Metzingen, Germany. Inspired by the teachings of the ancient Taoist philosopher Laozi, by the modern artist Brancusi, and the legacy of formative life experiences with his family in Germany and India, Laib creates sculptures that seem to connect that past and present, the ephemeral and the eternal. Working with perishable organic materials (pollen, milk, wood, and rice) as well as durable ones that include granite, marble, and brass, he grounds his work by his choice of forms—squares, ziggurats, and ships, among others.
His painstaking collection of pollen from the wildflowers and bushes that grow in the fields near his home is integral to the process of creating work in which pollen is his medium. This he has done each year over the course of three decades. Laib’s attention to human scale, duration of time, and his choice of materials give his work the power to transport us to expected realms of memory, sensory pleasure, and contemplation.
Wolfgang Laib studied medicine at the University of Tübingen (1974). Major exhibitions of his work have appeared at the Phillips Collection (2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2010); Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz (2010); Fondazione Merz (2009); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2009); Nelson-Atkins Museum (2009); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (2007); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2005); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2005); Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2005); Guangdong Museum of Art (2004); National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2003); National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (2003); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2002); Henry Art Gallery (2001); Dallas Museum of Art (2001); Hirshhorn Museum (2000); Kunsthaus Bregenz (1999); , and the Venice Biennale (1999, 1997, 1982), among many others. Wolfgang Laib lives and works in Hochdorf, Germany and Tamil Nadu, India.
Links:
Wolfgang Laib at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Laib Wax Room, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
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