Once again, I have spent the last Thursday evening with Miss I. It came as a surprise, as she was supposed to have something else to do. Anyway, as usual, she came up with a conversation that acted like a long fuse, the kind that triggers the sudden realisation that you have been missing on something for years, waking you up the following night. 20+ years in this case.
She asked me about someone I went to high school with. She knew her from college, and found S quite distasteful. I told her that she once was a very good friend of mine, and that she indeed turned out to be a less than a sterling person.
S is very intelligent: math and language oriented, with a lot of people skills and a daring attitude. She had a supportive family, was quite popular, fun to be with and a great friend of mine when I had trouble adjusting. My surrogate A at the time.
Then her older sister died. Her older sister was just like her, really brilliant. I do not know, I cannot explain what happened. The only thing I know is what I saw: a family being transformed. They all stayed together, of course, but, in a way, they took her death as a failure. They lost something more than a loved one. Something good was broken, and replaced by the intimate understanding that life is indeed too short.
I'll leave it at that.
Things changed, we were still friends but not that close any more. Then we grew apart.
We lost touch a few years later. I heard of her and her family. And what I heard through different channels, some of them very public, some other informal and very private didn't really made me want to get back in touch.
I'll leave it at that too.
But, beyond some vague feelings and half formed opinions, I hadn't seriously thought about this episode and how it had affected me, even though it got me to adopt a very well defined and consequential attitude toward some people.
Thanks to Miss I and a funny dream, I now know.
Basically, I have found out what I already knew and had never formulated.
Two kinds of people get my attention: those who serve, because they believe in something bigger than themselves ; and those who hack, in a very broad sense, because they question systems that shouldn't be able to deprive us from basic dignity.
She asked me about someone I went to high school with. She knew her from college, and found S quite distasteful. I told her that she once was a very good friend of mine, and that she indeed turned out to be a less than a sterling person.
S is very intelligent: math and language oriented, with a lot of people skills and a daring attitude. She had a supportive family, was quite popular, fun to be with and a great friend of mine when I had trouble adjusting. My surrogate A at the time.
Then her older sister died. Her older sister was just like her, really brilliant. I do not know, I cannot explain what happened. The only thing I know is what I saw: a family being transformed. They all stayed together, of course, but, in a way, they took her death as a failure. They lost something more than a loved one. Something good was broken, and replaced by the intimate understanding that life is indeed too short.
I'll leave it at that.
Things changed, we were still friends but not that close any more. Then we grew apart.
We lost touch a few years later. I heard of her and her family. And what I heard through different channels, some of them very public, some other informal and very private didn't really made me want to get back in touch.
I'll leave it at that too.
But, beyond some vague feelings and half formed opinions, I hadn't seriously thought about this episode and how it had affected me, even though it got me to adopt a very well defined and consequential attitude toward some people.
Thanks to Miss I and a funny dream, I now know.
Basically, I have found out what I already knew and had never formulated.
Two kinds of people get my attention: those who serve, because they believe in something bigger than themselves ; and those who hack, in a very broad sense, because they question systems that shouldn't be able to deprive us from basic dignity.
But only those who exhibit these two traits gain my respect.
Serving without hacking is being a mindless drone. Hacking without serving is being blindly self serving. You must have purpose and the means and will to question your purposes.
Motivation, intention, will and means. We always get back to those.
Serving without hacking is being a mindless drone. Hacking without serving is being blindly self serving. You must have purpose and the means and will to question your purposes.
Motivation, intention, will and means. We always get back to those.
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