[fosk]

I am sure people are willing to help you if you give them a way to donate - have you thought about setting something like that up? HN is a big enough community that even a small donation by a few users could cover the 3-4k expenses you will have to pay for your exams.

[throwawaycloud]

I appreciate that, but... When I pass beggars on the street, I've rarely given money to them, even back when I could afford to. It would be a bit hypocritical to do the same thing.

Everyone has problems. They don't define me. The main issue is that staying anonymous wouldn't go over well, and I don't want to be known as that guy with ass cancer.

A strange thing happened in the dota2 community. Dota 2 is a competitive game, and as such, it has casters (sports commenters). One very good caster is Sheever, but she was usually looked down upon as less talented than the other casters. Sheever had her moments, and she was pretty solid, but it's important to have an accurate perspective of your own work.

Then she publicly stated she had breast cancer, and everything changed. Overnight, everyone was super nice, to a ridiculous degree.

I saw similar things happen here, in two instances: 1. Randy Pausch, noted CMU professor who spoke at length about time management: http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/2008/07/25/Randy-Pausch...

2. The person from HN who ultimately took his own life near the end. I cannot even remember his name... I feel like I owe him more than that.

Death is our shared destination.

The only thing I regret is not ever having enough money to scrape together to father a child... It's kind of the only thing my wife and I want out of life at the moment, but it's totally out of reach. And it's partly my fault. If I traded away all of my time and made my life all about work, I could do that. But then is what little time I have left still worth living?

It's complicated. I enjoy having the option of getting people to listen. People tend to pay more attention when someone is at the end of their life, out of respect. So I'm putting together some writings that I hope will provide at least mild amusement / interest for a week or so, for whoever stumbles on them.

There are worse fates. I get to live in a time when I can connect with you fine people. I really believe in this community, as cheesy as that sounds.

To put it one other way: if my work is not good enough to attract money, for one reason or another, then that says a lot about society. I'm a relatively smart and capable Lisp hacker. I would rather serve as an example of the kinds of problems people with narcolepsy have, which are not fully appreciated or understood. E.g. most people in my life berated me for being lazy, growing up, and most of my memories from that time period were not good. If people understood there was a medical basis for this, they probably would have been more understanding, and I could have carved out a little niche for myself somewhere more easily. I, too, didn't understand what was going on, and thought that most people were just much more motivated than I was, so I started to look down on myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPzDiraNnA is worth internalizing. How you deal with problems determines the kind of person you are.

[olliepop]

Very sorry to hear about your situation.

FWIW, i had been concealing cancer symptoms for 6 months (denial, was obviously a tumour) when i decided to see a doctor. All tests (physical, bloods, ultrasound) came back negative until I saw a specialist, who confirmed that it was a tumour. Fortunately I was able to visit this extremely expensive expert, because the doctors were not convinced that it was cancerous. Turns out it was an extremely aggressive, and rare in male youths, form of cancer called Embryonal Rhabdomysarcoma.

If I was in your shoes I would be dead by now. Fortunately I had (still have, actually) an employer who backed me during this time including providing generous financial support.

> 2. The person from HN who ultimately took his own life near the end. I cannot even remember his name... I feel like I owe him more than that.

Am really interested in finding out more about this, if you have more information.

[throwaway848483]

2 > My guess is OP is referring to zeroMQ creator : Pieter Hintjens

[aquadrop]

I don't think you should blame yourself about beggars, it's not hypocritical. I don't usually give any money to beggars too, because most probably they are related to some crime groups (someone takes away most of donated money from them) and/or will just spend the money on booze and that's it. On the other hand, I've bought stuff I don't need from beggar-like old women here (babushkas), who just knit socks/hats etc and stand on the street trying to sell it and get some money (there were times in Russia when old folks had very low pensions after retirement). It's two different stories, when you give money to someone who'll just drink themselves to death or to someone who need a little help right now. So I wouldn't say it's hypocritical.

[j45]

I sometimes think about how people with homes drink alcohol for pleasure and sadness.. and wonder how much more they'd drink if they were homeless, especially if they needed to stay warm, etc.

Alcohol isn't my coping mechanism of choice. I'm also not in other people's shoes based on what they might be able to access to get through a few hours or just a day.

Sparked from "..and/or will just spend the money on booze and that's it."

[Fnoord]

> because most probably they are related to some crime groups (someone takes away most of donated money from them)

Why is that "most probably"?

Btw, you can give other things than money to beggars as well. Bread or a cup of coffee, for example.

[aquadrop]

Because that's how it is here (Russia). It's wide spread scheme - crime groups "cover" some territory (usually where there's a lot of walk traffic) and take money from all the beggars which stay on that territory.

Here you can see how beggar gives money to his criminal supervisor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TrRI1QyQ8g

There's a lot of info about it on youtube, but it's mostly in Russian. Beggars in good places can get 2-3 average salaries per month and most of those money goes to criminals. It's really ugly criminal business. As an example - there's such thing as "renting" small babies - because women with babies can gather more money. They drug babies so they would lie still in the hand of beggar women. So giving money to beggars is often same as giving funds to criminals here.

[Fnoord]

Thanks for the info, it had not even occurred to me that you could possibly be from Russia. I'm curious, do you agree giving a bread to a homeless person (in general, or in Russia specifically) makes sense?

[tomalpha]

This is a tough post to reply to meaningfully without seeming gushing or trite, so I’ll leave it at a genuinely meant:

Good luck :)