Topic: okay. (Read 166265 times)

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for fucks sake. if a god exists, i'm sure that no conceivable "plan" of his can justify taking the best and most interesting forum away from this world. i'm just in a state of shock; although i lurk and never post, i still read a lot of his posts and it shaped my perceptions on many things.

existence may not be a predicate, but surely this isn't either.
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[19:42] <crooksy> i kissed a 13 year old
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Wasn't as close to Steel as some of the people here, but from reading his run-ins with other members on the forums and my own interactions with him in the Staff forum etc, I know that the world just lost a really brilliant person now. He's the kind of person who you could imagine doing just about anything successfully...to see that cut short is cruel.

I feel like Steel not only made this place better, but made me better as a person, and I feel like I lost a good friend, even though I barely knew him.

Rest in peace, Steel. You will be missed.
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man i've been thinking about this all day
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I literally want to hug every single person here. I don't know...

RIP.
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this is so shitty. my heart goes out to his family, no one should lose their child.

gave a whole heap of money to cancer research today. they need it more than me.

y'all know he is chillin' with ayn rand right now ;)
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The most brutal part of this is that there's nobody here with more potential. This guy was going to do something huge.

That's what makes this so fucked up. Although noone deserves to go through this of all the people I've ever met on the internet it had to happen to HIM of all people.

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god, his mom.  his MOM.  this is really awful on multiple levels.

i feel a bit weird calling him mark.  i know it was his real name and on one hand i know that using silly, hollow internet handles is kind of dumb.  but it wasn't just some HANDLE anymore.  i knew steel.  i learned things from steel.  i argued a lot with steel and i laughed at stupid childish internet shit with steel.  i'm a better person for having known steel.  it's not just some dumb handle.  STEEL is how i knew him.  the name mark doesn't mean anything to me.  steel was a friend.

i knew he'd go like this.  i really knew it'd be something stupidly realistic without any warmth or room for comfort at all.  no goodbyes, no final speeches, no meaningful words as he gazed into the unknown.  just, he kind of falls off the map and one night quietly dies and that's it.  he was one of the most charismatic people i've known and he deserved something more fitting than just drifting off in the middle of the night.

when i really think about it, it seems inevitable that he was going to die, and this thread over the past day or so proves that for me, sort of.  as stupid, childish, and naive as i feel about actually thinking this... i must have believed my life was some kind of fucking sitcom or something.  i never HONESTLY believed he would die.  no, of course he wouldn't.  that's not how things work.  not in ol jeff's life.  things will work out.  things most certainly did not work out.  i really regret being so goddamn immature about this because there were a lot of things i should have said about how i was glad to have known him that just... didn't because i didn't think it was necessary, and that is something that will stay with me, i think.

but it seemed obvious that he'd die, because look at this fucking topic.  he was such a great guy, so smart, so much potential, i learned so much from him, it goes on and on.  when do you ever hear that in conjunction with "and now he's off somewhere fulfilling his potential and giving back to the world"?  this is the truth of things and i managed to deftly avoid it for a year and a half without even realizing i was deluding myself.  in regards to treesock, he once said that her love of MAES HUGHS or whoever was a bit absurd, because the character was built to be liked.  he was so affable, so smart, so charismatic, so GOOD, that it was obvious that he'd been written only to be killed off and leave everyone watching with a staggering sense of loss.  this is steel, i've come to realize.  everything about him was too good.  too interesting, too intelligent, too admirable, even the bad parts, of which there were many, were generally born of passion, which i can't really fault.  it was like he was just some character someone created for the sole purpose of dying and leaving a great big hole in the lives of everyone who knew him so they could all stand around talking about how great he was and how much he could've done, and how it's not fair at all.  this almost feels like a goddamn comic book.  i don't know how i didn't see this coming.  it seems like everything he was to me was all consciously moving towards this one moment.  like that's the only place it could have gone.

it just struck me that i'm writing about how he was, and what he was to me.  this guy is actually dead.  it's still unreal.  writing about a dead friend.  we spent so much time talking to each other, even when we weren't both at gw.  hours and hours and countless conversations.  with how much i tend to keep people i know in life at arm's length, he was the person i confided in most, the person i went to advice to for most, the person i just shot the shit with the most.  i connected with him more than any other person i met at gw and i can honestly say that he was my closest friend.  that's a weird thing to say for a net pal but after i found out he was dead, i realized it was true.  i think we talked to each other more than we talked to anyone else from gw.  we were both online a lot, and he was my GO TO GUY to chat with if i had anything to say at all, and i know i was his.  he once said in some topic about some dumb shit that we were each other's echo chambers.  that was true.  fuck, man.  STEEL.

i'm really sorry sredni.  you were probably much closer to him than i was.  this is probably a lot harder for you.  if anything, i feel sort of guilty because i'm not even reacting here.  i went to work tonight and functioned on a normal level.  aside from everything seeming different on a fundamental level, like skewed, like the world had slightly shifted just a little bit, it was like nothing happened.  i feel like i should be crying or angry or something, but all i really feel is a dull sadness and a vague disbelief.  i keep forgetting he's dead, then suddenly remembering and every time it just feel like it can't really be true.  like i must just be imagining things.

i miss him a lot, though.  this really shouldn't have happened.
Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 02:47:11 am by headphonics
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i'll be praying for friends and family
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This is really sad. People's fates can be so cruel.

People have tapered off into the unknown since Steel stopped being active. We need to make sure this place stays alive.

We had petty differences but I respected his charisma and strength.

Rest in peace man. Your soul is free now.
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fucking wow. i just logged on seeing the extra 2 pages and the first thing that pops into my mind is "oh man i bet he pulled through and things are looking up."

a lot of the time when a person died, everyone talks about how great they were, mostly out of respect. but with steel you know everything everyone has said in this topic was 100% true about him. he was a great guy and i'm really sad i didn't know him better.
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It's pretty tough thinking about the fact that he used to be just a name in a database hosted in some random data center, and now the real man behind that name is gone. He didn't just logoff, get disinterested, or get too busy. He died.

The world seemed considerably darker today.
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but it seemed obvious that he'd die, because look at this fucking topic.  he was such a great guy, so smart, so much potential, i learned so much from him, it goes on and on.  when do you ever hear that in conjunction with "and now he's off somewhere fulfilling his potential and giving back to the world"?  this is the truth of things and i managed to deftly avoid it for a year and a half without even realizing i was deluding myself.  in regards to treesock, he once said that her love of MAES HUGHS or whoever was a bit absurd, because the character was built to be liked.  he was so affable, so smart, so charismatic, so GOOD, that it was obvious that he'd been written only to be killed off and leave everyone watching with a staggering sense of loss.  this is steel, i've come to realize.  everything about him was too good.  too interesting, too intelligent, too admirable, even the bad parts, of which there were many, were generally born of passion, which i can't really fault.  it was like he was just some character someone created for the sole purpose of dying and leaving a great big hole in the lives of everyone who knew him so they could all stand around talking about how great he was and how much he could've done, and how it's not fair at all.  this almost feels like a goddamn comic book.  i don't know how i didn't see this coming.  it seems like everything he was to me was all consciously moving towards this one moment.  like that's the only place it could have gone.
perhaps, but i don't like to think that the end to one man's story is always his deathbed. i don't think the dissipation of any person's knowledge and energy from their body is necessarily the end to their influence on this planet. the reality, i think, is that the full sum of one person's life comes not merely from their actions, but how they were able to influence others. this is true to only varying extents with regular people, but doubly true with special individuals.

great people are always great teachers. it is through the vision of outstanding people that we form a greater understanding of life and all the little things that come with it. in the worst way possible, everyone here today with anything at all invested in this ordeal has learned the ultimate lesson: life is as beautiful as it is fragile. everyone with a door in their home that opens up to the real world knows this, but to varying and usually superficial degrees. you're informed of the fact that bad things can happen, but for most people this fact seems distant, unreal. i'm sure i could spend fifteen minutes and find some big post steel made about how easily desensitized people can become nowadays. there is a vast difference between hearing about this and truly feeling this in the deepest corners of your psyche, and often it takes some tragic event to bridge the gap between knowing and believing. all of us are greater people not merely for having known steel, but for having lost him prematurely. a greater injustice than losing him would be if you guys learned nothing at all from what your emotions told you today.

you all know he would have felt this way. at that final powerless moment of submission, this is what he would have hoped for. it's all you can ever really hope for.

i could think of a thousand ways this lesson could have been better learned, none as poignant. this is the final, ultimate gift he has given all of us. what you choose to do with this gift is your own decision. just please, do not squander it.
Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 04:25:51 am by Hundley
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yeah i can't disagree with that at all.  in fact, i almost said something similar to whoever up there said WHAT PLAN COULD LEAD TO THIS, GOD??? because the immediately obvious answer is that his death seems to have impacted a lot of people here in a rather serious way.  in the time i knew him, he was... inspiring, i guess.  you could say the silver lining of his death is that it is no less resonant and inspiring than he was to me throughout our relationship.  that there is something to be TAKEN from this.  just, in a different, much more depressing way.  still, as much as i know that despite his death, his influence and the things i learned from him will stay with me, and in that way it's sort of like he's not entirely gone, i still know he is.  still dead.  i feel like anything else said is me trying to make myself feel better about it, even if it's true.  you're right, of course, but i know you know what i mean.  you start telling yourself, well as long as he remains in your heart he's not truly blah blah blah and then you tell yourself to shut up.  he's gone.  just gone.  dressing it up doesn't change it.  it's a bitter thing, for sure.

sitting here, though, i still can't help but feel that this whole thing was doomed from the start.  i used to wonder what would happen with our relationship, as the years went on.  it didn't feel like either of us could drift off and lose contact and just kind of forget about the other.  even at the time, i thought it would've had to be something abrupt.  now i know.
Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 04:39:19 am by headphonics
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I feel bad following up all these really long heart felt posts because I barely ever talked to Steel and I think the only time we ever communicated was a few brief arguments we had, but still somehow he was the type of person who had such a strong effect on those around him that I am genuinely shocked and sad that some guy I didn't know at all via the internet died. It was pretty obvious, like people have said, that he was one of the building blocks of GW, and we'll all miss his ability to argue absolutely anything and do it damn well. I wish I had something better to say, because he deserves it. Rest in peace.
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Steel was one of the first people from GW to contact me after my husband died. I will always remember that, above anything else.

He was a good person, and I feel lucky to have known him, if only through the internet. It's frustrating to feel so powerless over life and death.

I honestly don't know what else to say.
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I'm a friend of Amark's. I lived in the same dorm with the guy and have known him since sophmore year of college. The first time I met Amark was in the lounge of my dorm, an RA was putting on a program down there and in the middle of the program Amark started spouting out some Mitch Hedburg lines. Everyone there thought he was crazy. But I soon started spouting off some Hedburg lines back at him. That's when I knew that I've met a great friend. A friend that didn't really care about normality and niceties.

Throughout my time with him he pulled me through doubts about life, job losses, breakups, and a slew of other problems. The man had a way of telling you the honest truth in both a comforting and visceral way. He cared about each and everyone in such a deep way that I can't even fathom. And Amark was just so god damn intelligent. I'm in here stumbling upon my words, while Amark could pull out poetry without even having to press the backspace key. I always admired how he could talk to you about anything, no subject was off limits. There was no fear of crossing a boundary with Amark.

I was there last night along with a couple of his other friends and his family when he passed. He was in a coma for his last few hours and we were told he could hear everything we were saying. So we told countless stories about how much Amark has changed our lives. The man is an inspiration. I know I would be a much more passive guy, letting the world pull me down, if it wasn't for him. He has taught me, no matter what to be yourself, fight, and really take no shit from anyone. When he did finally pass away you could tell that he was calm and at peace.

Amark always would talk about gamingworld and how much he loved you guys and I'm glad to see how much you all care about him.
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yeah i can't disagree with that at all.  in fact, i almost said something similar to whoever up there said WHAT PLAN COULD LEAD TO THIS, GOD??? because the immediately obvious answer is that his death seems to have impacted a lot of people here in a rather serious way.  in the time i knew him, he was... inspiring, i guess.  you could say the silver lining of his death is that it is no less resonant and inspiring than he was to me throughout our relationship.  that there is something to be TAKEN from this.  just, in a different, much more depressing way.  still, as much as i know that despite his death, his influence and the things i learned from him will stay with me, and in that way it's sort of like he's not entirely gone, i still know he is.  still dead.  i feel like anything else said is me trying to make myself feel better about it, even if it's true.  you're right, of course, but i know you know what i mean.  you start telling yourself, well as long as he remains in your heart he's not truly blah blah blah and then you tell yourself to shut up.  he's gone.  just gone.  dressing it up doesn't change it.  it's a bitter thing, for sure.

sitting here, though, i still can't help but feel that this whole thing was doomed from the start.  i used to wonder what would happen with our relationship, as the years went on.  it didn't feel like either of us could drift off and lose contact and just kind of forget about the other.  even at the time, i thought it would've had to be something abrupt.  now i know.
yeah

this is an eternal pain that will never go completely away. we'll always know what was and what could have been, and it'll leave something broken in all of us until the day we die.

i just don't want to see anyone become too embittered or frustrated because of this. nobody wants their memory to be one of pure sorrow and heartache, but a reaffirmation of all things good about existence. despite how bad my heart feels right now, i think i have already taken steps towards being a better person in light of this tragedy and in steel's memory. i hope everyone else can too.
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i'll post more about how i feel about this a little later; i just want to point out that the post above is not meant as disrespect, but it's the only way i can effectively communicate how i feel about this. i'm utterly fucking speechless.

asldkjgnadsovinadsvkladsnvadva

fuck, man
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I'm a friend of Amark's. I lived in the same dorm with the guy and have known him since sophmore year of college. The first time I met Amark was in the lounge of my dorm, an RA was putting on a program down there and in the middle of the program Amark started spouting out some Mitch Hedburg lines. Everyone there thought he was crazy. But I soon started spouting off some Hedburg lines back at him. That's when I knew that I've met a great friend. A friend that didn't really care about normality and niceties.

Throughout my time with him he pulled me through doubts about life, job losses, breakups, and a slew of other problems. The man had a way of telling you the honest truth in both a comforting and visceral way. He cared about each and everyone in such a deep way that I can't even fathom. And Amark was just so god damn intelligent. I'm in here stumbling upon my words, while Amark could pull out poetry without even having to press the backspace key. I always admired how he could talk to you about anything, no subject was off limits. There was no fear of crossing a boundary with Amark.

I was there last night along with a couple of his other friends and his family when he passed. He was in a coma for his last few hours and we were told he could hear everything we were saying. So we told countless stories about how much Amark has changed our lives. The man is an inspiration. I know I would be a much more passive guy, letting the world pull me down, if it wasn't for him. He has taught me, no matter what to be yourself, fight, and really take no shit from anyone. When he did finally pass away you could tell that he was calm and at peace.

Amark always would talk about gamingworld and how much he loved you guys and I'm glad to see how much you all care about him.

thanks for coming on here to share this with us. Were you there before he was comatose? He had so much to say, I can't help but wonder what his last words were.

:( I just want to know how he felt about this, taking that leap into the void or letting go or whatever. Dying was something he'd been dreading and spent a lot of time thinking and writing about since this started. As you can tell from reading over this thread he'd fluctuate from sober realizations of his mortality to taking it in stride making tongue-in-cheek remarks about being a ghost or dead man walking to an energetic/desperate optimism about new developments and experimental medications.

He must have been exhausted in every way possible(mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc.) and I hope he was at peace when he passed.
Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 05:42:32 am by DietCoke