[edw519]

Aaron Swartz is what I wish I was.

Please don't compare yourself to anyone else. It's pointless, disempowering, and generally a waste of time. Your "best you" is what I wish you wished you were.

I am a bright technologist...

You are not alone. There are many of us here, like you and like Aaron.

...but I've never built anything of note.

The things you build do not have to be famous to be "anything of note". Do people use the software you have written? Do they benefit from it? If yes, then it is most certainly "of note".

I have strong opinions about how to improve this world, but I've never acted to bring them to pass.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. That means you're normal. 99% of us are in exactly the same boat. We go about our daily business, taking care of ourselves and those close to us, making the world a better place in a thousand little ways.

Think of it this way. We're all just one great big football team. The Aaron Swartzs and Steve Jobs of the world are the quarterbacks and ball carriers whose names are in the press all the time. But they would accomplish little if it wasn't for those of us around them who block and tackle all day long. Don't be upset that, up to this point, you've been a blocker or tackler. Be proud. And realize that your turn to carry the ball has yet to come.

I have thoughts every day that I would share with the world, but I allow my fears to convince me to keep them to myself.

Congratulations. You have just taken the first step toward addressing that issue with that statement here on Hacker News. Now please take Step 2. Start a blog. If it's anything like this post, then I want to read it. And others, I'm sure, will want to also.

If I were able to stop being afraid of what the world would think of me, I could see myself making every decision that Aaron made that ultimately led to his untimely death.

You don't know what really led to Aaron's untimely death. No one does. The decisions you make are just one input to a complex process we still don't understand. So go easy on yourself and don't jump to unnecessary conclusions.

I am upset that we have a justice system that would persecute me the way it did Aaron.

Many of us are upset about this and a lot of other things too. But we won't allow any of them to stop us from living our lives fully. You can be upset about things in background and still have a wonderful happy life in foreground. Give it a try.

I am upset that I have spent 27 years of my life having made no discernible difference to the world around me.

I bet if I asked those close to you if the felt they same way, I'd get a resounding "No!" Maybe you should, too.

Most of all I am upset that Aaron's work here is done when there is so much more he could have accomplished.

Agreed. I guess that means that each of us now has a few more things to add to our own To Do Lists.

Thanks, John, for the great post. Best wishes for feeling better and getting on with it. Ultimately, that's what we hackers always do.

[bengillies]

While the untimely death Aaron is tragic, the constant fawning over celebrities on Hacker News is frequently depressing. Both in the sense that we, as a community, are not able to rise above it and, rather more selfishly, that I am not one of them.

While, to a large extent, I already knew everything that you'd written, I'd like to thank you for reiterating it.

[danso]

I don't know if I'd call the posthumous interest in Aaron as fawning. He did a lot of great work and had admirable ideals. He no longer has the capacity to be an agent of change. And while you can say his spirit "will live on", part of that passing on the torch comes from a thorough examination and celebration of his life. It doesn't just happen sometime down the road.

[toyg]

I actually feel the opposite: HN is one rare forum, giving space to lots of side-projects and experiments, the overall motto being "stop talking and build it". Of course YC people get more space (hey, it's not a newspaper), but that's hardly "fawning over celebrities", or at least nothing compared to what you'll see on most other sites.

[pyre]

  | Please don't compare yourself to anyone else. [...]
  | Your "best you" is what I wish you wished you were.

While you're somewhat right, how can you continue to improve yourself without reaching beyond what you currently are?

[roc]

You are X. Someone else is Y. The key is defining "the best you" as X++, not Y.

Taking inspiration from someone you perceive as Y and defining X++ in the pursuit of Y is fine. Just so long as you recognize success and failure are X++ and X--.

[AnthonyMouse]

I get what you're saying, but it's not always about that. We need exemplars. We need people who are willing to stick their neck out and make change. Because you each think that if you're the only one taking a chance then you'll probably lose, but when we see others on the stage fighting the good fight then more of us will be willing to follow that example, and that allows us to build strength in numbers and win more of our battles.

[smspence]

I think that's what he was getting at with saying "best you". Being the "best you" that you can be would presumably mean reaching beyond the "you" that you currently are.

[hkmurakami]

> Aaron Swartz is what I wish I was.

I personally interpreted this statement in abstract terms, rather than in concrete terms: to be a builder, to have the courage to voice our beliefs, and to put our beliefs into action.

These concepts are abstracted high enough from "the actual Aaron Swartz" that they are just general positive traits. Striving to embody these traits (rather than trying to mirror Aaron Swartz, for instance) is in my opinion, health (to a limit, of course).

In that sense, "Aaron Swartz" was a personification of these abstract virtues that perhaps many of us wish we could project more strongly in our own lives.

[GHFigs]

Abstracting virtues from the person you're ascribing them to is a lot like religion. Opinions will differ on whether that's a bad thing or not, but it may be useful for many to be mindful of the difference between eulogy and hagiography.

[bytefactory]

Just wanted to say, reading your post made my morning. I've noticed that with me, and (generalizing here, hopefully it doesn't dilute my message) a lot of us in the hacker community tend to be very good at finding flaws, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's very rare to see strangers stand up for each other, say a kind word, or generally just be..._nice_. Especially in semi-anonymous places like the comments section of HN. It's always a welcome change, and I hope we see a lot more of this.

[ahoyhere]

I would like to add that those of us who knew Aaron (however briefly) can say that rarely is anyone as simple & admirable in reality as they are painted in obituaries. Was Aaron a good person? Did he mean well? Certainly. But our relatively brief, pre-Reddit friendship ended years ago because I couldn't take his sometimes relentless negativity… something Cory Doctorow hinted at in the obituary he wrote for Aaron. Cory wrote that Aaron's mentors were a support network for each other because it was emotionally hazardous to be on the receiving end of Aaron's disappointment. Aaron was never, ever mean to me, but still the overall bad feeling was a weight I couldn't take. I'm incredibly sad that it appeared to be a weight that he couldn't take, either.

It's been my experience that a lot of "bright" people are angry that the world, and the people they know, don't "live up" to their "in a perfect world," clean-room expectations. Instead of using that as fuel for empathy and character-building, they use it as a weapon and turn it outwards to attack others, or inside to stoke their own misery. Sometimes this drives them to try to achieve more and more and more to shut up the desperate voice inside, but this never works. Maybe they achieve, but achievements don't make them feel better.

This makes the whole situation sadder because everyone expects a person with achievements to be happy.

Unfortunately, sad truths about how a person contributes to his/her own troubles and miseries, aren't considered kosher or polite to mention in the wake of a tragedy. But Aaron was a complex human being and I don't think it does him any honor to whitewash the complexity.