[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.