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A Moment Before Dying

aaronsw.com

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In its original version, 'Alex' used to read 'Aaron'[1].

[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof...

Wow. It's also worth reading the comments below the original article.

"You’re scaring me here. Please sick around and talk to us. You can always die later. There’s no rush."

"Jeez, Aaron - get some help. Now. Suicides talk about it before they do it."

etc.

You guys are getting creepy with all the Aaron Swartz stuff.

My work ethic sucks compared to Aaron. My politics are the opposite as Aaron. My views on God are the opposite as Aaron's.

But, damn it, I recognize the pain that Aaron has gone as the same pain that we all go though. There's a lesson here for each of us, somewhere, in Aaron's life and indeed his death.

Frankly, let people mourn the best they can, and even if you don't understand their grief, let them alone for a few days.

Aaron did impressive things, and it sucks that he killed himself. If talking about his suicide prevents others from doing the same thing, then that's a positive thing.

That doesn't make it a non-creepy thing to do for an entire community to trawl through his website and post everything he ever wrote.

When people die, their friends (or in this case, never-met Internet supporters) share their fond memories of the dead, go through old photos, etc. Posting old things from Aaron's web site is a natural extension of this.

Over 90% of the HN front page was aaronsw stuff. It seemed a little excessive.

Far less than when Steve Jobs died, and for a shorter duration.

Damn it - will you give the guy a day to be remembered.

What's it to you? Can't you wait for one day. The articles you want will be waiting for you tomorrow. And the day after that. Aaron was a part of this community (see the black bar above) and many looked up to and respected him.

I'd be surprised if HN didn't get taken over today.

In the comments...

"It needn’t be this way, for there is a cure: the joy of life. Sanity can be restored through attempts at music, channeling the fundamental disorder into form and elegance, focusing the energy toward good. Art, especially the art of nature, as Alexander suggested, is likely another cure." —Aaron Swartz

Interesting that he uses the term "objects in space" on this text. I wonder if it was inspired by the Firefly episode with the same name, which itself reflects the directors reading of Nausea[1].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausea_(novel)

Am I strange for not understanding it?

I took from it that the suicidal person's time horizon got shorter and shorter until a moment before dying they're focussed on the most minute of details (literally crumbs) and unable to look further ahead.

There may also have been a sort of parallel between stomach pains and mental/emotional pain.

What do you expect to understand? This is a morbid story written by someone who committed suicide. Or are you talking about a higher meaning of the writing?

No, I don't understand either

I feel like I understood it, but it is hard to put into words. I find that strange.

Emotionally it is easier to explain: It makes me feel like I did after the first time I watched American Beauty, read The Yellow Wallpaper, or listened to Bush's Razorblade Suitcase start to finish. Surreal maybe.

Perhaps in this case understanding is more emotion than cognition?

It is a slightly embellished (but based on his real life) narrative of him coming back from a vacation in Europe, dealing with some sort of stomach flu for about a week, getting fired from Reddit, and getting all emo about it.

Sounds like a lot of people tried to help him and that this wasn't a full surprise.

Wow that was intense. I have goosebumps all over...

wtf this is exactly what happened to me at exactly that time wtf

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