Cory Doctorow writes:
Because whatever problems Aaron was facing, killing himself didn’t solve them. Whatever problems Aaron was facing, they will go unsolved forever. If he was lonely, he will never again be embraced by his friends. If he was despairing of the fight, he will never again rally his comrades with brilliant strategies and leadership. If he was sorrowing, he will never again be lifted from it.
Depression strikes so many of us. I’ve struggled with it, been so low I couldn’t see the sky, and found my way back again, though I never thought I would. Talking to people, doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, seeking out a counsellor or a Samaritan — all of these have a chance of bringing you back from those depths. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Living people can change things, dead people cannot.
(emphasis mine.)
I hate myself for never doing enough.
I must remember to forgive myself for never doing enough, because as long as I stay alive, I am doing more than I would be able to do if I were dead. The hard part is believing that I’m not burdening people and making things worse by staying alive. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t disagree with that all the time now, which is a vast improvement. Each of us has talents and the capacity to show each other delightful things, so we should continue to do that and we’ll always disappoint each other, but it’s okay. We were all made to be disappointed and all we can do is try to think about the delightful parts instead.
There are people organizing hackathons to work on projects in Aaron’s memory. MyLifeline looks particularly interesting to me because it could totally be feasible with a simple twilio app (I started sketching some ideas).
Here are some strategies for talking to people at risk via SW.
Lawrence Lessig is impossibly eloquent on what could possibly lead someone so well-loved by so many people to do this, and how disagreeing with the means is not the same as disagreeing with the entire person or being entirely unsupportive. It is very complex, but life is complex, and these are important, lifechanging, earthshattering issues they’re fighting.
I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.
It is also funny that in the phrase “But anyone who says that there is money to be made in a stash of ACADEMIC ARTICLES is either an idiot or a liar,” LL actually uses caps, bold, and italics.
Nothing is real and everything is real, because this is all we have and we’re here on this earth for such a short time anyway.