Richard Stallman's Remarks on His Pain
Reposted from this page.
Email to Richard Stallman from Richard Lawrence
The author of the following email has given us permission to publish it here. It was sent to Richard Stallman after Stallman replied to a message the author had sent to a mailing list. In it, the author mentions being touched by Stallman's suicidal thoughts as quoted in Steven Levy's book Hackers - Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
From: Richard Lawrence <[Redacted]>
To: Richard Stallman <[Redacted]>
Subject: Thank you
Date: December 2024
Dear Richard,
This is just a note to say: thank you for your message, and thank you for your work. I could hardly believe it when, after several days where no one replied to my initial post, I woke up one morning to find that the first and only reply was from Richard Stallman himself!
I've been an admirer of your work since I first found the Free Software movement, during my college days (sometime around 2005 or 2006). I don't remember any more whether I found out about Free Software by downloading GNU Emacs, or whether I downloaded it because I'd found out about Free Software. Either way, I've been an Emacs user since then, and it's an honor to finally be one of its contributors, too, and getting emails from you.
A few years ago I read Stephen Levy's book Hackers, and was quite touched by a passage in the 2010 Afterword, where he quotes you as saying:
I certainly wished I had killed myself when I was born...In terms of effect on the world, it’s very good that I’ve lived. And so I guess, if I could go back in time and prevent my birth, I wouldn’t do it. But I sure wish I hadn’t had so much pain.
Sincerely,
Richard Lawrence █