In his farewell letter, there was a Mark Twain quote. I was periodically refreshing the WC last night hoping to see a thread started by Bchad with as subject line another famous Mark Twain quote: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”.
I’ve never met Bruce the person, but I feel more than qualified to reminisce about Bchad the AF member as I witnessed and participated during one full decade to his large number of posts. He was one of a kind. I know everyone here already knows that, I want to reiterate how great a poster he was to people who happen to be reading this thread many years from today that didn’t post during his era. Through his 16,000+ posts, he must have typed close to 5 million words. His dedication, involvement and contributions to this site are unparalleled. His footprints are all over; I don’t think you can find a worthy thread on this site without Bchad being involved somehow, either starting it or responding to it the only way he knew how - with grace, intelligence and humor. The foundations of the AF temple have forever been shook.
To those that have read the farewell letter and can relate to the pain Bruce was feeling, I pray (without judging Bruce’s actions) that you have the necessary strength to take a different route to fight your inner demons.
What is saddening to me is not that he’s gone, but the fact that he had to struggle like this. He did not deserve this end. At the risk of being presumptuous, I feel there is a good chance someone of his talents could have solved his problems, but he needed help. I think many of us along with his friends in real life could have assisted him solve these issues. If anyone else feels as he did, seek help instead of bottling it in and living in misery.
I had a college professor that went in the same fashion. Incredibly intelligent and kind human being just as Bchad. I only knew him through discussions here on AF but admired him greatly. I will miss those massive walls of text and intriguing anecdotes. Farewell Bruce.
This is not what I expected when I logged into AF this morning. Especially since there were two threads with BChad in the title, I thought it was some stupid meme or troll.
This is awful. . . I guess I missed the window to read the letter, so I really don’t know what many people are alluding to in their comments. He was one of the main reasons I still read this forum, since most of the debates without BChad (or Ohai) aren’t always the highest quality. Since I have no idea what is going on, could someone let me know if there is a GoFundMe if the family or GF need financial help. RIP Bro. I agree now that 2016 has been a shitty year
Feeling a little better after reading his letter, I guess. Clearly he thought things thru, though personally I can’t really understand this choice. Classic Bchad eloquent writing style, complete with references to the ancient Greeks. In a functional society people like him would be leading the country, not struggling to make rent, while con artists figure out schemes to further concentrate wealth. I thought his concluding points on “a few houses of great wealth competing with each other” while everyone else starves, was very important. We talked about that many times on here, he was a big picture thinker.
I think it’s normal. Over the past several years, we all spent more time conversing with bchad than we did conversing with most of our IRL friends. Bchad is someone I directly talked to weekly for maybe 9 years. That’s more than I can say for anyone except my wife and maybe my five closest friends. Plus, due to the online and somewhat anonymous nature of AF, we were all more candid with bchad than most IRL friends.
It’s a weird feeling to lose someone you’ve never met (or met only a few times) but for many of us, AF is as routine as brushing our teeth and bchad was the toothpaste.
I recently lost a friend I met on another forum. It was the first time I really experienced what you (we) are going through. One of my coworkers did notice the funk I was in. I found describing it as an old friend or a friend from back home worked well enough, since a lot of people still do not have forum-related experiences. You can also discuss it privately with people on this forum who you may be close with. Both of these helped in my prior situation. I’m not as active on this forum, so I am not as close with anyone here (vs other forums) but BChad is still weighing on my thoughts.
I’ve always found immense value in forums and have spent some time trying to think through how the friendships are similar and different, since it was an interesting philosophical topic to me. I’ve met some people on forums that have profoundly impacted me more than some of my closest friends IRL. I think MLA covered the dynamics pretty well for this situation.
Yeah, “electronic friends” are normal now. MLA explained it well.
I’ve been on here like a decade. Way more meaningful conversations with Bchad than with almost anyone in my “real life” finance work, and we know all about him from his thousands of posts. Woke up this morning excited to log on and brag about my crushing the S&P total return this year (since Bchad, Ohai and MLA tend to be bullish on US equities). My fun was instantly crushed when I saw this thread was not about him leaving the forum, but leaving everything.
Talked about it with some people at lunch. It still sucks.
I don’t know about others but his posts and suggestions had real impact in my life. He was sort of role model because it’s hard to be like him who can maintain the decorum while having an intense debate. He was a gentleman and a real one.
This event opened up my eyes about the meaning of life. If a man like him can take a decision like this then anything can happen. He always emphasized that there is more into a life than just money and sex. He will be missed!!
I agree. But, severe clinical depression often leaves people helpless. You’re numb to the world, yet keep on living and putting on this facade of being nice and friendly to people even though you have this deep down feeling of escaping and being alone. Don’t get me wrong, the expressions, feelings, emotions and infractions are real and a reflection of the person’s true heart. But, in spite of the many moments of light there is a darkness taking over completely which makes emotions numb and general life devoid of feeling. Programmed responses to smile take place when interacting, yet a dark cloud is always looming, felt constantly.
Attempts to seek help are dulled. Through therapy you learn to use effective coping mechanisms to release the pressure and stress. Identification of stressors and how to relieve them is essential. Having a support system in place is also key. Also, it is important to be in touch with your emotions to get in touch with your support system if needed while alleviating stress through coping mechanisms.
So, it’s not that easy to pick up the phone and ask for help. Intense physical activity helps as well and for me personally has been a Godsend. Certain things like intense activity, sunlight, or even taking Vitamin D3 are methods anyone can do to help to jumpstart the chemicals in the brain to ‘identify a foreseeable future’. Some need behavioral therapy, chemical therapy, or a a combination of the two. But, a lot of it is being in touch with your mind and emotions to assess what is going on and if unable, professional help is needed. Therein lies the problem, how to get professional help when you’re unable to reach out or identify that seeking out an MD is the solution.
