A few years back, I had a side-of-the-desk project illustrating the internal process by which my organization would write, review, edit, and publish blog posts. We called it the Wheel of Communication due to its cyclical nature, although soon the illustration itself was reviewed and edited and redesigned and reviewed again and edited again and redesigned again until we were left with a Waterfall of Communication 11″x17″ poster to hang on everyone’s wall.
About this time, I took a trip to Japan with my exciting new girlfriend who would later become my wife. Japan is old and makes no attempt to hide it. Even in the middle of the technological orgy that is Tokyo, you’ll turn a corner and find a centuries old noodle house nestled between two ultra-modern post-war buildings. The graveyards rattle in the wind and the temples are guarded by worn statues of zen masters who died long before my country was born.
I came back keenly aware of the vastness of time and my life as a speck of dust meandering in the wind when my boss said, “There have been a few changes while you were gone to the Waterfall of Communications diagram.” I told him that I was done with that project and not going to work on it anymore. He understood.
I’m reminded of that day as I ponder the deaths of Becky Tarbotton and Aaron Swartz.
Read the countless articles praising their lives from family and friends and even peers who admired them from afar and you’ll notice that everyone notes how tirelessly they fought for the things they believed in. That’s true.
Having worked in the trenches with her at Rainforest Action Network and gone dancing with her on the playa at Burning Man, the thing I’ll remember most about Becky is not her sparkling intelligence or easy charm but how her life seemed constantly about to fall apart. It never did, of course. She just kept going. If she shared her latest tragedy with you, she always did so with an accepting smile. The imperfectness of reality seemed to dull its sanctity give her permission to try and make it better.
I knew Aaron only by his works, but the stories that surround him and pieces he’s written paint a similar portrait. The struggle was what revealed strength. A difficult task was a challenge and mistakes were a gift and chance at improvement. He seemed unbreakable.
Their optimistic dissatisfaction might explain why both were so productive as individuals and powerful as leaders of their respective communities. Frustration can be a red light or a green light and both Becky and Aaron lived life in drive. Default to action. Do something, learn from it, do something else. In one team-building exercise at RAN, Becky admitted to being more bison than caribou (yes, it was that kind of place). She would rather charge ahead than wait for the herd.
In truth, Aaron and Becky may have had little in common aside from the timing and senselessness of their deaths. Now they’re both gone and we’ve trudged through the stages of grief, in search of acceptance—to the degree anyone can “accept” a thing like the lives of these two beautiful people being so tragically cut short.
I assert that meaning is not something found but something made. Even the hacker conglomerate Anonymous has remarked on Aaron’s death, saying:
You were the best of us; may you yet bring out the best in us.
With that in mind, I intend to make meaningful the double tragedy that has marked this winter by honoring the wretched clarity that follows death. Pain should provide focus and loss should invite gratitude. I’m searching my life for the equivalents of that Waterfall of Communication illustration—the accumulated clutter that life is too short to worry about—and defaulting to action. Do something, learn from it, do something else.
Yes, this is my second post in a row about death. I’ll get on with it.
