novarest wrote:Guys, this is not how any of this works.
Josh is a genius and has very high intelligence. But now he has lost his brain-shield. Call it burn-out, depression, whatever. That genius/insanity lie close together is not just a saying. Anyway this has happened thousands of times before and will happen again thousands of times. It's just the way of human reality and tragedy on this planet. Sure there are a bunch of psychologists and drug pettlers who claim to have figured it all out, but I think that's all bullshit. We are quite powerless in these things of the mind.
Every time Josh will try to come back, he will see a mean posting and it will hit his brain like a laser beam, or he will look at some old code line of his and the fact that he is no longer "into it" will hit his brain like a missile. And the constant pressure to "come back" will just be as stressful and exhausting as being here.
There are no easy solutions now.
He can try to take the hits and power through but it will probably fail since an invisible magnetic force will push him away from the forums and the development again and again. The effortlessness is gone. They joy of development is gone. The gravity has shifted, the resting point is no longer in the game. There is no resting point anymore, just repulsive forces away from here. Maybe someday a new resting/gravity point will form somewhere else for him (job/wife/kids). Or magically it will be this game again, though this can take years or may never happen.
He can give the project away to a successor or sell it. This is as painful as trying to power through or even more, since it is "giving his baby away" and abandoning everything that could have been, irreversible. Something will life on. It might be in his spirit or it might be an abomination and others will make money with it. Which would be horrible. So this might also be a bad solution.
I couldn't care less about the 187k. Would anybody take this money to have his life destroyed/altered in that way? No, it's not worth this. It's not worth any amount of money.
But I don't want to be just doom and gloom. While I want to make it clearer that these is little hope for the game, there is hope for the human. Life goes on. He can spend a few years watching TV shows. Watch human history go on. And slowly find a way back. Or he will find the miracle drug that does it. Any amount of good things can still happen and probability says they will just by chance. I mean there are ~70 years to go so.
I think the best thing we can to is lay the game to rest. Disarm it. Abandon all expectations. Find peace. This was all out of the control of anyone. In a way inevitable.