Depression (2014)
archive.fo
archive.fo
The Depression post was one that resonated with me and kept me thinking of the quote from True Detective, "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at."
Would you provide a bit more background information? Whose website is this? What FOIA request are you referring to?
Edit: Someone else asked the same question below, and it was answered.
I read the FOIA response because I wanted to know what happened. I had always hoped they killed their handle and moved on to something else, but unfortunately that wasn't what happened.
It just seems completely wrong way. Who cares if you excel at something? What about things you love? I love some things that I am terrible at. And I am good at some things because I love them.
And as for our brains, OMG! There are things we people can do that are so amazing. Just astounding. If you can speak any language, even if not Japanese, you learned it. And not from a book. You just 'got' it.
It is just a tragedy, because there is so much.
I may be totally wrong about this, but I hope that on my death bed I get a chance to reflect on this: of all the persons that were possible for me to become, I like this one very well. I have not excelled. I have not even been successful in most senses. But in just becoming a full person, I did pretty well.
As I said, I cannot put myself in your circumstances, but here is one important moment for me. I started painting and found that the very hard part of painting is not to think. If I think "oh this would be a good painting" then it is not. If instead I let go of thinking and just do, it goes well. I am not a good painter, I don't excel at it, but some of the things I have painted hold something for me.
Thinking is the life killer. We need it, we can use it and be good at it, but it is not the master. The master is attachment, love, fondness, joy, being. That probably does not help, but I hope it does.
the things i was able to achieve. it's not much, but looking back i have few regrets so far. i took advantage of opportunities that were given to me, and surely, while some things went the wrong way or could have gone better, it would not have been possible to predict that, so there is no reason to lament on that. better to ask myself what i can learn from this and how i can make good use the remaining time.
you picked up painting and learned something in the process. i remember painting in highschool. i wasn't very good, but there are a few pictures i still remember that i am somewhat proud of. not because they were good technically. they weren't. but because i had a vision, and i was able to execute that vision with the skills i had. like you say, they hold something for me.
what you mean by thinking, is probably overthinking. you are right on that. i see this in my work too. there is probably a perfect solution to that programming problem, but while i am trying to find that solution, i am not making progress. until i am able to detach myself from that goal and focus on the real problem, that is that this program must be in a state so that others are not held up working with it. so i try to avoid thinking to much and just get something working first.
same goes for for life overall. instead of dwelling on what could be, i focus on what is important now. sometimes even only to get me through the day. and sometimes not even that. sometimes i just find something to take my mind off things.
one thing that i have learned is that relaxing, unwinding, by like playing a game or watching a movie or doing something else that otherwise feels like a waste of time, especially when there are so many other things that i should be doing instead, are actually important and worth doing too. so after a stressful day i feel i earned the right to play. and sometimes i can even motivate myself to do something stressful that needs doing by rewarding myself with a joyful activity after.
>The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead. https://youtu.be/AfqTOhi7AnQ
"But you’ve only got to run the other way," said the cat, and ate it.
-- Kafka, “A Little Fable”
Drive and passion are extremely valuable things, but they can be very difficult to distinguish from obsession and self destructive behavior. I guess one way to try to keep yourself from flying off the rails is to manage your own expectations. What do I expect from mastering something? Am I doing to try to show off or prove something to someone? What difference does it make if it takes me 1 year or 20? What’s the risk if I fail? Am I enjoying the process? Am I seeing progress? Do I need to make more commitments to get to the next level? How effective has beating myself up, skipping out on my responsibilities, friends, family, and other pleasurable hobbies been in my journey? Am I more or less happy in my pursuit?
I dream of being conversationally fluent in Japanese. I’d love to be able to watch films and anime with minimal help from subtitles. I’d love to be able to read it (although I’m a little scared of kanji). Through the language, I’d like to understand the culture and the history better, to feel the joy of learning something challenging. Piling on myself for being a stupid piece of shit because I can’t remember words or comprehend a sentence a native speaking toddler can understand is not only inappropriate and unreasonable, it’s also one of the biggest obstacles to achieving my goals. As I keep that in mind, I find that I’m able to thoroughly enjoy the process. Although I totally get the author’s desperation to find someone patient enough to spend time talking with and teaching me.
I heard a story from an old runner who said, “Once I was running along the side of the road and somebody in a passing car leaned out and asked, ‘What are you training for?’ As they zoomed by, I yelled back, ‘THIS!’”
My point is that the trying is the getting somewhere.
He later committed suicide I believe.
They even attempted to change their internet alias multiple times to avoid their incessant stalking until settling to their final one (Near).
Edit: A child post has provided reasonable evidence that I'm mistaken about Near preferring singular-they pronouns; "he" is likely fine. Apologies for the mistake. I will leave the original body of the post as I still think it's worthwhile to remember why Near was targeted for such harassment.
I also believe marcan (another friend of Near's) commented something similar, but I can't seem to find it (I think it was on Twitter).
Near's spouse referred to Near via "he/him/his" in all of the police/consulate correspondence in the FOIA, so it seemed alright to me.
That's just the tip of it though.
TLDR; The retroarch devs had an IRC channel where they would shit on byuu/near all the time, for no reason other than a group of them did it constantly. It was part of their "community".
I'm always wary with these one-sided "X was oppressed by meanies for no valid reason!" and using suicide as a way to enshrine it.
looking back i do not see any period where humanity as a whole and each individual were better off and thriving more than today. sure, there were always some individuals who did well, but the majority was toiling away trying to bring food on the table.
to me, the whole point is developing society to improve. learning how to cooperate to achieve greater things than any individual or small group could.
modern society is not the pinnacle but a mere stepping stone to build an even better society in the future.
stories like this one are a reminder that we still have work to do.
we need to learn how to be supportive of each other but also teach and guide people to develop sensible goals and ways to achieve them. we also need to learn how to ask for help. without knowing any more about this person, merely speculating just based on the newest post, it looks like this person did not have access to any of that.