I Am More Than Just Broken, I'm Damaged
I just saw The Internet's Own Boy. And I just posted this in response: <a href="http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Want-To-Save-Everybody/5456779" target="ep_blank">EP Link</a>
But I really want to say something else. He was broken. He had his ideals, his life, he worked on whatever he thought was the most important issue in the world at that moment in time. Then he had the criminal justice system hammering him with threats of prison all the time. He tried to keep those things separate. He was fighting for open access to journals, so that kids like the 14 year old just after he died who came up with the early test for pancreatic cancer would have access to that information that could open up that kind of possibility to millions of children and adults alike all over the world.
I am here to say I had those ideals. As a kid I wanted that. I wanted real information. The kind our science teachers told us about, that had error values and estimated uncertainty. The experimental design that wasn't flawless. I wanted to learn to program solutions to things that were hard to do online.
I didn't have access to that information. I broke. I drank and drank and spent all my money. I then tried to fit into this broken system, working in product design for a pittance and a boss whose microcontrolling ocd failed us all. And now I am just like those slow-moving dinosaurs in congress who didn't understand a thing about the internet and tried to bring in SOPA. I am an adult. It sucks to realise that the single big revolution of my Dad's lifetime is the internet. Computers alone are just extensions of screens. But the internet revolutionised life. Cars existed when he was young. So did TV and music. Those are just tweaks since he was a boy.
So in 50 years, just one thing changed his life. Yet millions of us are "working" full time. Adults are useless to furthering this race. We realise it in the third world, investing in children so they can go to school and do better than we did. Adults, especially job security, are the banes of this world. Children can learn things so much faster, and stay on top of things much better. Let them have the internet. Let them access everything we currently know and don't know. Free journals for everyone.
It is a sobering thought for me to realise the most important thing I can be working on right now is saving other people's lives. Saving their inspiration, their drive, their emotions, their ideas. Encouraging them to work on them regardless, things they love doing. Essentially, raising children.
I do it here sometimes, but in such limited capacity.
I am broken. I am slow, my brain slowed down. The brake is on. Maybe that's depression. Maybe I was meant to die when I had appendicitis - everything was winding down to that point, and has continued pretty much downwards since. Maybe I need a lesson from one guy somewhere else in the world whom I've been talking a lot to these past weeks here on EP. His life was broken, and is now .. somewhat less so. Maybe I need help to see how much I have to give. How 'on top' of psychological well-being I am. How I can further that dream that nobody in this world should feel of any less or any more value than anybody else.
Thank you Aaron, for inspiring me to post this here, and to say outwardly that I gave up. But that I have also simlultaneously not given up: I do believe life is better. I believed it then and I BELIEVE IT NOW: Life Is Better.
I have spoken. From deep in the depths of the turmoil happening within, that those without don't see. My life has begun to unravel, to become straight.
Love to all.
But I really want to say something else. He was broken. He had his ideals, his life, he worked on whatever he thought was the most important issue in the world at that moment in time. Then he had the criminal justice system hammering him with threats of prison all the time. He tried to keep those things separate. He was fighting for open access to journals, so that kids like the 14 year old just after he died who came up with the early test for pancreatic cancer would have access to that information that could open up that kind of possibility to millions of children and adults alike all over the world.
I am here to say I had those ideals. As a kid I wanted that. I wanted real information. The kind our science teachers told us about, that had error values and estimated uncertainty. The experimental design that wasn't flawless. I wanted to learn to program solutions to things that were hard to do online.
I didn't have access to that information. I broke. I drank and drank and spent all my money. I then tried to fit into this broken system, working in product design for a pittance and a boss whose microcontrolling ocd failed us all. And now I am just like those slow-moving dinosaurs in congress who didn't understand a thing about the internet and tried to bring in SOPA. I am an adult. It sucks to realise that the single big revolution of my Dad's lifetime is the internet. Computers alone are just extensions of screens. But the internet revolutionised life. Cars existed when he was young. So did TV and music. Those are just tweaks since he was a boy.
So in 50 years, just one thing changed his life. Yet millions of us are "working" full time. Adults are useless to furthering this race. We realise it in the third world, investing in children so they can go to school and do better than we did. Adults, especially job security, are the banes of this world. Children can learn things so much faster, and stay on top of things much better. Let them have the internet. Let them access everything we currently know and don't know. Free journals for everyone.
It is a sobering thought for me to realise the most important thing I can be working on right now is saving other people's lives. Saving their inspiration, their drive, their emotions, their ideas. Encouraging them to work on them regardless, things they love doing. Essentially, raising children.
I do it here sometimes, but in such limited capacity.
I am broken. I am slow, my brain slowed down. The brake is on. Maybe that's depression. Maybe I was meant to die when I had appendicitis - everything was winding down to that point, and has continued pretty much downwards since. Maybe I need a lesson from one guy somewhere else in the world whom I've been talking a lot to these past weeks here on EP. His life was broken, and is now .. somewhat less so. Maybe I need help to see how much I have to give. How 'on top' of psychological well-being I am. How I can further that dream that nobody in this world should feel of any less or any more value than anybody else.
Thank you Aaron, for inspiring me to post this here, and to say outwardly that I gave up. But that I have also simlultaneously not given up: I do believe life is better. I believed it then and I BELIEVE IT NOW: Life Is Better.
I have spoken. From deep in the depths of the turmoil happening within, that those without don't see. My life has begun to unravel, to become straight.
Love to all.
36-40, M
