Life In 19x19

Because he just resigned both of his Malkovitch games quite abruptly with no explanation...

I knew Greg Lefler quite well. Anyone else who did will immediately know what I'm thinking. Does anyone have Kirby's phone number or anything?

Hope I'm being paranoid.

Just saw these myself. I hope everything's OK with him.

CSam

He's got a busy few months with a Korea trip, moving cross country, and starting a new job. I don't think it's anything more than that.

oren wrote:He's got a busy few months with a Korea trip, moving cross country, and starting a new job. I don't think it's anything more than that.

Ok, well, all those things are sources of stress (even though they may be "good stress" it's still stress) and his emotions have been hit hard by some of these Malkovitch games, it looks like, and...

I don't want to see that happen again to somebody, even if I only know him through his posts on here. I really hope somebody who knows him sees this soon.

EDIT: Did you see his resignations? Heck no. Something's not right. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight if I don't hear something soon.

My guess is that he is ok. I talked to him at Cotsen, exactly a month ago. He was planning stuff, talking about the future. He didn't seem to be in a suicidal state of mind. ( Sorry, but somebody had to say the s-word ) One of the touchstones of the suicidal person is they get very short horizons and can't see a future. He was not like that.

I do think, however, based on those conversations and other things like the 'being great' thread, that he has been severely dissatisfied with his life. It would not surprise me if he did something rash. Maybe he will do something great. Regardless, I think he'll come out of it ok.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:My guess is that he is ok. I talked to him at Cotsen, exactly a month ago. He was planning stuff, talking about the future. He didn't seem to be in a suicidal state of mind. ( Sorry, but somebody had to say the s-word ) One of the touchstones of the suicidal person is they get very short horizons and can't see a future. He was not like that.

I do think, however, based on those conversations and other things like the 'being great' thread, that he has been severely dissatisfied with his life. It would not surprise me if he did something rash. Maybe he will do something great. Regardless, I think he'll come out of it ok.

I've gotten the severely dissatisfied feeling as well, and I haven't even spoken with him in person. I hope he's ok, but the abruptness... I'm really worried.

Just because somebody has good days doesn't mean that the bad days can't be bad enough to push them over the edge. Being dissatisfied is a reason to want to change things, but if plans fall through or even just take too long, the accumulation can feel too strong for somebody.

ethanb wrote:Because he just resigned both of his Malkovitch games quite abruptly with no explanation...

I knew Greg Lefler quite well. Anyone else who did will immediately know what I'm thinking. Does anyone have Kirby's phone number or anything?

Hope I'm being paranoid.

Do not worry, if he had died, he would have notified us. We are his friends, we wouldn't die without saying goodbye.

Given that he last logged on here less than 12 hours ago I see no cause for alarm.

DrStraw wrote:Given that he last logged on here less than 12 hours ago I see no cause for alarm.

He logged on only to resign his two ongoing games.

He did so within one minute, with no explanation, and he simply copied and pasted his resignation message from one game to the other without saying anything else.

Maybe I'm oversensitive to the idea of depressed Go players doing something aji-keshi with their personal lives, but I seriously find it concerning.

I did sleep a little, and I dreamed that Kirby posted on here saying he just had some things to think over and he was fine. I'm really unhappy to see that such a post hasn't happened.

I obviously don't know what's going on with Kirby. But I can easily relate to the idea of pulling back suddenly from Go (or any number of other things), even without much communication. The fact that he took a moment to resign his games means he's acting deliberately and with some thought.

My suggestion is to chill out and give the man some space to do whatever he needs to do.

When Kirby was at GD, he once decided not to post anymore there until he reached a certain level (I can't remember exactly, maybe 3D). Perhaps he's once again not satisfied with his performance or lack of performance and want to retreat to study.

tchan001 wrote:When Kirby was at GD, he once decided not to post anymore there until he reached a certain level (I can't remember exactly, maybe 3D). Perhaps he's once again not satisfied with his performance or lack of performance and want to retreat to study.

I agree with this. Except I got the distinct impression that moreso than being unhappy with his rank, he was just trying to change how he was using his free time.

Malkovich games can consume huge amounts of free time.

Whatever problems he may be having (and I also don't know him, so can have no idea whether he has any, and if so what they are), surely he should be discussing those with his friends and family, and other people in his real life, not with people he doesn't know on an internet forum?

robinz wrote:Whatever problems he may be having (and I also don't know him, so can have no idea whether he has any, and if so what they are), surely he should be discussing those with his friends and family, and other people in his real life, not with people he doesn't know on an internet forum?

Of course!

...unless he's not. In which case whoever cares about him and notices something should speak up. That's why I've been asking somebody who *does* know him to give him a phone call and find out what's going on. I don't want to know any personal details, I just want to hear definitively that he's ok.

Maybe it's just me, but I empathize with Kirby's posts a lot, and it causes me to feel connected to him. I'm going through some stress in my own personal life right now, and I still feel partly responsible for Greg's unfortunate end (maybe it's that "survivor's guilt" you hear about...) so I'm naturally very concerned.

Probably I'm overreacting, but I would feel a lot better if somebody could tell me definitively that he was ok rather than telling me I shouldn't worry so much.

I don't mean this to be critical, but I think you've done all you can or should do. You've raised the possibility, and anyone who knows Kirby will either take it under consideration and check with him, or know enough to dismiss the possibility. Anything more would be out of proportion to what those of us on the board know.

Just my two cents.