It’s time for me to thank people who, through their work, defined me as a person.

Thank you Terry A. Davis. You completely obliterated my whole narrative of “being incapable because of mental state”. Your example is the reason I’m privileged enough to type this right now, you’re the reason I survived depression. You showed me how to overcome FOMO once and for all by just doing what I’m supposed to as good as I can. Fame will come. And indeed, it came.

You’re not the smartest programmer who ever lived. Only humans can be programmers. You’re a superhuman. You’re not the smartest programmer. You’re just the smartest.

May you rest in peace.

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Thank you Richard Matthew Stallman. You showed me that the good which also can fight is a thing. You taught me to be afraid of nothing. You taught me how to be an immovable object, no matter the unstoppable force opposing. Because of you I can freely interact with people and my illness has no influence on who I am.

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Thank you Håkon Wium Lie. You showed me that the ways of overcoming and suffering aren’t the only ones. You’re charming yet uncompromising, empowering yet never reckless. Since we met, in any troubling social interaction my brain automatically thinks “What would Håkon do?”, and somehow it’s always able to find a solution that doesn’t involve the cruelty that always dictated what I said and what I did.

You can already stop doing good things because you’re surely going to heaven with other golden retrievers but I know you’ll never stop.