Recently, for the one billionth time in my life, I was sorta dumped came to the end of yet another relationship. Don’t ask… it’s a long story.
Anyway, the sorta-dumping happened at the worst possible time because I had to make a lot of public appearances in the days after; I had two job interviews, I had errands to run, I had a social event to attend, I had a sick friend I had to visit and other minor things that took me out of the house. So basically, the sort-of-dumping happened in the middle of life.
I didn’t have the luxury of two or three days that I could spend curled up in bed, feeling sorry for myself, watching old episodes of Modern Family all day and crying myself to sleep every night…
There was no time to enlarge his picture and use it as target practice…
No time to create a secret Twitter account from which I could send him anonymous death threats.
I had been sort-of-dumped but life was taking place around me and I couldn’t press ‘Pause’. I had to hold conversations like a normal person, laugh at jokes I didn’t really find funny, force myself to not smash every radio that was playing any song that even remotely reminded me of him and during my job interview, when I was asked my short term goals and where I see myself in five years, I couldn’t reply, “In jail for 2nd Degree Murder of a boy”. I HAD TO LIVE LIFE!!!
Of course I realize that my sort-of-dumping is highly insignificant compared to real life misfortunes some people have had to face or are currently facing, but it made me think…
And that’s how, in the middle of my search for a pause button, I met a dead guy (more like the story of a dead guy) called Aaron Swartz. He hanged himself a couple of days ago.
Apparently, he was this computer genius and software programmer who, by the age of thirteen, had done things that most of us would never even dream of. The first thing that struck me when I saw his picture was how handsome he was (so sue me… I’m a newly-single girl). He had a really cute smile and wild dark hair.
He was an internet activist who was arrested in 2011 for illegally accessing and downloading 4.8million academic journal articles from JSTOR so that people could have access to them free of charge. I discovered JSTOR three years ago in my final year in school. While I was working on my dissertation, more than two dozen rats lost their lives because I had no idea what I was doing… Some I overdosed and the others died of hunger. One of the rats even mutated to something that looked like it belonged on X-men. Why? Because I simply couldn’t afford the fees for downloading scientific journals from the JSTOR database. If I had access to the journals, it would have guided me and all those rats wouldn’t have died and gone to rat-heaven or mutant-rat-hell.
Anyway, contrary to what we see in The Sopranos, it seems the FBI has a lot of time on their hands so they somehow got involved in Aaron’s case and eventually, he found himself facing up to 35 years in prison and a one million dollar fine. For someone who was already struggling openly with depression, as he was, I can imagine that the prospect of prison was enough for him to not want to go on.
He’s dead now, and the world has one less brilliant mind, yet still too many Honey BooBoos.
Too bad there’s no such thing as a ‘pause’ button that gives us a break from all our shit. Maybe Aaron woulda used it… but the saddest part is, even if we “pause” personally, the world around us will move on and when we press ‘play’, we’re still going to have to deal with whatever.
Cheers to all the people dealing with shit in their lives…
RIP Aaron…
Aaron…
ps: Please does anyone know how to open a secret Twitter account?
Funny enof i read about Aaron just yesterday, and its sad 2 knw dat anoda brilliant mind is gone..
But they needed a scapegoat, and aaron was d perfect choice. I tot FBI’s job was to catch terrorist, but it seems catching pple who download illegally is also part of their job discription.. my only hope is dey find time to come 2 Nigeria and arrest all of us.
R.I.P Aaron.
Not just brilliant, but cute too… It’s part of the FBI’s job description, yes, but there are so many other things going on in the US!! 35 years for his crime was overkill.
We didn’t have access to JSTOR articles remember? It was all the other crappy ones that were on the internet that we could download. JSTOR always asked for a fee…
Am not talking abt only Jstor, all d music and movies we’ve r illegally downloaded… so in dat case we re all guilty.
They should try it na… they should start making arrests from Aba (Piracy Central)… mtscheeeew!
RIP… You didn’t have to kill yourself!!!
He was already dealing with depression… his trial was starting in a few weeks. I’m not defending suicide, but it was too much for him. 🙁
Cheers
Cheers honey 😉
opening a secret twitter account is like opening normal account with a secret name and location..lol. NICE
LOL!! Only you would say that :p
I tried that but while I was signing up for an account, under “reason for opening twitter account” I clicked ‘to send anon death threats’ and my application was stopped 🙁
Thanks love…
Sadly he chose suicide over life. He had the smarts to make money & pay for said info & share. He had options. He made choices…none worth emmulating…RIP Swartz!
Doing well Ngozi!
Yeah, but 35 years? Baby rapists and child molesters don’t get that long. And he was already depressed.
Besides, that wasn’t the only thing he was fighting… 🙁
My dear adorable Ngozi! Its the American dream in danger here. He made money from patents & then had the audacity to infringe on another man’s money making venture. So they threw the book at the guy. He would have got some lousy press, a lot of cheer!
A deal for 10 years, serve 3, in some IT geek jail & probably have got the depression treated on govt funds.
What ever! He’s dead! Let’s see if it’ll have the same ripple effect as the Egyptian kid’s human touch act.
Ouch… Sweetie you mean am o… but I see your point. I never saw it that way. There are a few people who believe he is/was nothing but a criminal hacker.
Lol @ IT geek jail! Is there such a thing?
Like you said, “Whatever! He’s dead!”
ps: you know you’ve used style to give me assignment right? Now I’m going to have to find out what the hell the Egyptian Kids Human
FingeringTouch act is…did he dump HRC or did he ask you politely to leave him the f&%k alone? lol… if you like don’t post this one.
Oh goodie… you’ve got jokes…
My friend faaaaakk off my blog!! This is MY territory. I should probably register you under spam or something. And is that the only thing you saw in the entire post? Not even an RIP?
ps- thanks sweetie… you’re the bestest! 😉
Throwing d book at him or not. The whole. Thing still stinks to high heavens. RIP Aaron.
……..Engee, good work. Real guuuuuuud work. Made my day.
I agree… all the wrong people are hanging themselves 🙁
And I’m glad you liked it. Thank you so much!!!
Phenomenal piece. Big ups!
Awww… thanks dear. And Happy Birthday!!!!