\f0\fs24 \cf0 [Tim O'Reilly] I've been asked how I as a publisher who has an online service
that puts content behind a paywall could possibly be a support of Aaron Schwartz, this guy who
downloads content from services like that. And my answer is that we're trying to invent
the future, and the future does not look like the past. And the future is uncovered by struggle
to figure out what works and what doesn't work. And the people who figure that out are
people to whom we owe an enormous debt. \
\ I was trying to think of, you know, past experiences
with Aaron. When I first met him, he came to our Foo Camp and our Etech Conferences.
But what I decided to share with you is a poem that I read as part of a talk that I
gave at our Etech Conference in 2008. And I checked, and just to refresh memory, Aaron
was there. \
\ The poem was part of a talk entitled, "Why
I Love Hackers." And I started out with a picture of some berries, some poisonous ones
and some ones that were good to eat. And I said, "Somewhere way back in time, somebody
had the courage to figure out which of these things were good to eat." And I talked about
people wanting to fly, and how it was this crazy dream, and eventually, we figured it
out, and lots of other stories from the history of hacking.
\ And then I ended with a poem, which seems
singularly appropriate for Aaron because it's about both the courage to try to do what hasn't
been done, to change the world, but also how hard that is, and the challenge of it. It's
a poem called "The Man Watching," by Rainer Maria Rilke, in translation by Robert Bly.
\ He said, "I can tell by the way the trees
beat, after so many dull days on my worried window panes, that a storm is coming, and
I hear the far-off fields say things. I can't bear without a friend. I can't love without
a sister." \
\ "The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives
on across the woods and across time, and the world looks as if it had no age. The landscape,
like a line in the psalm book, is seriousness and weight and eternity."
\ "What we choose to fight is so tiny. What
fights us is so great. If only we would let ourselves be dominated, as things do, by some
immense storm. We would become strong too, and not need names."
\ "When we win, it's with small things, and
the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to
be bent by us. I mean, the angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament. When
the wrestler's sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like
chords of deep music." \
\ "Whoever was beaten by this angel, who often
simply declined the fight, went away proud, and strengthened, and great from that harsh
hand, that needed him as if to change his shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This
is how he grows, by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings."
\ I don't know whether Aaron was defeated or
victorious, but we are certainly shaped by the hand of the things that he wrestled with.
\ [applause] }