People Call Me Aaron
medium.com
medium.com
I also have experienced the name-calling thing. My mother, at times, ends up calling me by my brother's name. I think that is the hardest thing at times, because clearly she's not over it (he shot himself with her in the next room).
I really do feel for Noah. It's not something you ever truly get over (here I am posting about it 13 years on), just something you just got to learn to deal with. I found that for me, I had to find a healthy coping mechanism/hobby to get through those first few years. Life still goes on man.
Different experiences for different people :)
(P.S. My brother was not facing incarceration but had significant mental illness, just feel like I can identify with the loss. Do not believe anybody really close will, you like said, truly get over it. Time really does not heal all wounds.)
However, my father also died of a heart attack a little over a year beforehand, so I'm sure that was part of it, but I'm sure the jail term was about 90% of what was on his mind at the time.
I only wanted to share just in case Noah ever reads this. Things do eventually get better.
How can you compare the death of a man shot by police on the underground because of been confused with a terrorist, with a person driven to suicide because they are facing a jail sentence?
I have rarely meet other programmers apart from the few ones at work, and usually we don't socialise outside of work. I think this is the norm. I haven't noticed any kind of scene. The average programmer is quite anonymous. You code, and then you go home. Maybe you go drinking with your flatmates, one of who might be a plumber and the other a teacher. They don't talk to you about about plumbing, and you don't talk to them about programming. You talk about football or whatever.
I think it might help Noah to just live the life of the average programmer, and not go to all these political or tech conventions where your brother image has a life of its own. Not to socialise exclusively with people who are in the same line of work as you are.
Also, some people participate in the "scene" while others don't. I used to go to more meet-ups and hacks-a-thons, but not so much anymore. I am not sure which is the norm.
Maybe its also a thing more with web development and start ups. Where the whole company can be mostly tech people, and where most people are young (so socialize outside of work more).
London is bound to have plenty going on.
Sky have recently started big investment in the area, as you're probably aware, and do a Tech Event most months with various guest speakers, the next one of those is focusing on JS if that's your thing - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leedstechhub-javascript-ticke...
There's a Code Dojo - http://www.meetup.com/Leeds-Code-Dojo
There is also a Hack Space if that interests you - https://leedshackspace.org.uk
An annual Hack Day takes place, but that's usually later on in the year - http://leedshack.org - but other hack days have appeared at other times during the year (they tend to be corporate sponsored ones but if you get past the recruitment element of them, they can be fun.)
Somewhere I can get involved?
Another good bet is to spend a month in a coworking space. There will be events sometimes. At the friendlier ones people go to lunch together. Different spaces are different though. Some everyone kind of sticks to themselves.
You can volunteer at RailsBridge or other nonprofits. There are also "hacker spaces" that you can just hang out in and work on a project.
You can also look up conferences that are coming through your city and go to them. Many people will be from out of town, but you'll meet a few local people there too.
A couple I would recommend are the React meet up, usually held at Facebook's office, and Functional Programming for the Web, both run by an agency (I think?) called Red Badger - but obviously that depends on what your interests are!
Have you got any experience in London with meetups for people looking for work? I will need to hire at least 2 more devs this year for my startup and have no clue where to start. Certainly don't want to use a recruiter...
However, it's something that you can choose to do or not to do, and something that is not at all necessary to be a good professional developer.
The wording of this comment seems to be, in a very small way, symptomatic of the larger problem that Noah sometimes has with people he meets or knows well. To illustrate my point, here's another way to write the same thing:
>> I had no idea that he was Aaron's brother until this moment
The original wording seems to conflate the identity of Noah's brother with his own.
I think we tend to do that though for better or worse: we identify new people by one or two odd facts we know about them. And that alters how we communicate with them. In another instance at that conference, I asked the guy next to me who he was and he told me his name. He then told me he wrote a series of articles (which I had known about) and immediately my view shifted: oh that guy. And it completely changed the way I interacted because of course now I felt compelled to talk about his articles rather than something else.
Your comment (to me at least) seems to suggest Noah wanted everyone to associate Noah with Aaron, and in the same moment wanted to be unhappy by said association, which doesn't seem like a fair thing to say about Noah.
Agreed. And to continue his/her presumed train of thought, in my own words:
" Whoah! ... but now I realise that the guy I met was really somebody. He was Aaron's brother."
>> Your comment (to me at least) seems to suggest Noah wanted everyone to associate Noah with Aaron ...
I have no idea how you arrived at this interpretation of my comment. Though I can agree that if I had been making such a suggestion it would have been unfair to Noah.
Anyway, I don't believe it is worth pursuing this further. We have at least demonstrated that, in all good faith, it is easy to interpret the same thing in different ways.
He's really laid back and an overall cool guy to talk to. I'm glad I didn't know - Aaron was a great guy, but being identified as your dead brother's brother must be miserable...
A math teacher, who had my brother for a single year, called me by his name for the whole three years I knew/had her. By that point, it's not just offending, you just start thinking your identity is just a proxy for the other person's, it's downright depressing.
My brother and I look very much alike, to the point that to the untrained eye we would look like twins at certain points of our lives. Although around my teens, this had some unfortunate consequences, such as girls my age I fancied who would meet my older brother and see a better physical version of me in him, and forget about me. I can't really blame them, but again, not exactly uplifting.
It isn't an issue at all these days, we have very different lives and personalities, we live thousands of miles away, but mostly, my brother is alive and well, and I guess, not famous ; but it's definitely had an effect on me when I was younger.
I guess I came here to relate, but the truth is I can't even begin to imagine the added constant reminder of a deceased relative, no matter how amazing they used to be, or maybe even particularly so. The fact that those reminders are people who, by and large, had nothing remotely resembling a relationship with the person in question, especially not of the kind siblings would, must be incredibly hurtful.
I feel deeply for Noah and I genuinely wish he can affirm his own identity, and that people will make an effort to do so after reading his touching story.
I've figured out how to break people of the habit: call them the name of their sibling. This fixes it real quick like.
It happened most class periods to somebody, and that was with him being very deliberate about asking people to point it out and trying very hard not to do it.
I think that is why a lot of siblings end up doing opposite things -- ones likes math, the other start painting, one goes into the Army, the other one is anti-military. One likes to wear bright colors, the other likes all black. One goes to school on the East coast, the other goes to the West.
Obviously people are different and will do and like different things -- but from my circle of acquintances it goes a bit beyond that when it comes to siblings. I think at some level, that is a way for individuals to define themselves, and that is in relation to their environment -- "I am who I am because I am not ...".
I view it very much as a 'persona' and, in my opinion, most all highly intelligent individuals - especially those in the public eye - must have one (or quickly develop one) in order to cope with the needs of being self-confident to carry forward with beliefs and goals and values, yet also be able to "put down the microphone" and live a wholesome, personal life. This is the elements of celebrity and notariety that are weaved into the essay, and it's very touching to see the care expressed toward himself, his brother, and trying to understand and work through the behavior of outsiders. Aaron, from what I saw and recall, had a very prominent persona. It's pretty much 'immortality' in the Achilles sense.
To me, and this is just from one musician and writer who has embraced using pen names and personas for years, this article is very useful to give some thought and consideration to how, generally speaking, US society and culture has decided to value 'authenticity' and 'transparency' to the point of being a little bit intrusive. I'm possibly under-stating it, but I also don't want to get too far away from what the essay is conveying to me. It's an affirmation of a perspective I formed and was guided to form as a youth in the arts: Notariety, whatever its source, has significant baggage.
But, move out into the world and people are judging you on what breaks down to reputation and at most few hours of interactions. Which makes it easy to pretend to be someone else.
That's not to say it's purely a bad thing. When people identify strongly with a group it's easy to lump 'others' into a meaningless category and then do bad things. Still, being able to ignore someone you just met's option as worthless is arguably a valuable skill.
in my opinion, most all highly intelligent individuals - especially those in the public eye - must have one
And I did start to develop a hint of a persona. Like you say it was kind of a must. Having strangers that know who you are coming up and talking to you is definitely flattering and also definitely a bit intimidating so you quickly develop a... a mode you go into or something.
Not a calculated Raoul Duke thing at all. In my case it was more like the different "personas" any person has - the personality you wear at work vs. the one you wear around your parents vs. the one you wear around your significant others. I was always being myself, but you definitely calibrate yourself a little differently for different groups.
It's also something that's been much remarked-upon by various minority groups. I've heard a lot of African-American comedians, friends, and commentators mention how they have feel the need "act white" when they're not around other black people. You hear the exact same thing from LGBT folks as well - they often choose to "act straight" by default in a lot of environments.
I've seen this a lot firsthand myself. It's also a good reminder that having the option to code switch is a real privilege. For some people it's not a coping skill, it's a literal survival tactic.
I recently took a friend to the grocery store, and called her son by my son's name when I wanted him to move out of the way of someone else's cart.
Sometimes I need to work through ALL the names to get to the right one..
pap...hil...sam...ji...joan..KIM could you please....
Eventually you narrow it down to the right kid, right name :)
Its the times when she starts using the cats name I get a little miffed.
> My mother is known for cycling through names before hitting the right one.
>
> I was frequently addressed as "Hershey-Chris-Patrick" while living at home.
Exactly this. My mother calls me by my dead brother's name all the time. I'm pretty sure if anyone was aware of his death, she would be (given she was with him at the time).
It probably doesn't help that he looks a lot like Aaron.
I can imagine people just not letting it click and continuing to make that mistake.
Just this weekend I called my cousin, whom I've been close friends with for over a decade, by his brother's name. It was the first time I've seen him in about a year but we've been very close for very long. I was thinking about his brother in the moment I meant to use his name and it just came out. There was no thought.
I like the article. It's important to talk about this sort of thing. But the comments here... Please consider they are essentially casting judgement on people for not actively thinking to themselves, "Call them X, call them X..." in the moment X should come out of their mouths. What human actually does that in the normal course of verbal communication? Why are we expecting people to do such a thing?
He's just expressing how it's hard on him when people do get their wires crossed.
I had a weird feeling while reading this, I don't really know why, after having read quite a few articles already.
Thanks, Noah!
Sad post about how he's had to deal with his brothers death while people he barely knows seemingly use him as a way to pretend they are connected to his brother and the response is "oh cool, more about Aaron".
And I agree with what I believe the commenter's intention was, which is to say this piece both humanized Aaron in a way other posts don't, and it gives a window into the personal tragedy of suicide.
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Edit:
This made me curious as to what it was like within the GP/PTQ/SCG scene for him. From my experience, almost no one in that scene would know anything about Aaron.
I've been clean and sober since Zendikar. It's tough, but every day it gets a little easier. :-)
It's gotta be damn tough to lose a sibling. To lose one that so many were connected to... I have no words.
Other than, nice to meet you Noah. Hope to get to know you better and that your life improves. We don't all suck, and most of us mean well most of the time too. Draw what strength from that you can and keep doing what you are doing.
It's important that the world knows Noah. You seem like a pretty great guy actually. Take care.
That's pretty much how I feel about it.
Then Snowden revealed that control and surveillance was already so very much worse than even the paranoid imagined.
Snowden's revelations suggest that Aaron would be just the sort of dissident the domestic spying and manipulation might target.
Whatever facts will or wont become known, we lost a great inspiring creative soul in that good man's passing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Assistance/comments/hax0t/my_friend...
{ Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents. I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see. As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out. Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks. }