Saturday, December 19, 2009

People with big dreams sometimes get lost



Two days after my much beloved friend oneup left this world behind, words still fail me.
Nevertheless I attempted a brief obituary on the hackerspaces.org blog the other day:

Dear all,

as of yesterday afternoon, our fellow hacker, amazingly talented game and graphic designer, and wonderful friend Florian Hufsky aka oneup (aka geeq, aka no_skill) is no longer with us.


Some of you might remember his beautiful game ideas for Super Mario War or Puit Universe, the 72 dpi Army, and Urban Takeover (later ClaimSpotting), but also the work for GRL Vienna and laser tagging, and Planet; or him being spokesperson of the Austrian Pirate Party, founding member of soup.io, just as well as an amazing graphic designer and comics artist,... and I could maybe continue this unordered braindump of a silly attempt to make a list of all the projects he'd been involved in for eternity and a day, but - never will I be able to embrace the sheer endlessness of his very original, both incredibly inspired and inspiring, geek-artistic output.

Metalab has lost one of its most creative hackers, and the world one of its most beautiful minds.

The one quote of his that came to my mind right after we heard the terrible news was, 'When in doubt, do it (you have no chance to survive, make your time)' - and that, I believe, is what held true for all his life.




R.I.P. Florian Hufsky | November 13th, 1986 – December 16th, 2009


While tears choke the words, I have to admit to fail at expressing my deepest sorrow.
Much love and sincerest condolences to all friends and relatives.

And we all go together if one falls down, we talk out loud like you’re still around; and we miss you.

/astera


However, what I probably in fact want to say, is how much I hate myself for missing out way too many opportunities to tell someone so very special how I felt, and what he meant to me, every other time I thought about it.
And if this tragic moment could teach me anything besides the ultimateness of all being, then it should be about awareness, frankness and honesty in all things emotional...

I spent just a very tiny while today on thinking about a little tribute to pay a friend I will be missing for such a long time to come; and maybe forever.

Oneup wrote on August 11th, 2009:
• plant a tree (seriously. plants humans coexist & need each other
And yes, we will. The idea I have is to plant (have planted) a horse chestnut tree, right across the street from Metalab in the smallish park on Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz, by next spring.
Let's make it happen.