things that stick and the "essay" i accidentally wrote about it

It may come as no surprise that I'm still what you would consider "fairly new" to the Linux ecosystem. I won't bore anyone with my #awesomechildhood but for context - I didn't have WiFi until I was an adult. Technically, I didn't have a computer, aside from a Surface Laptop Generation One that my biological father stole from the mother of my classmate. But, I didn't know how to use it for anything. It just sat most days. But if you know anything about them, their batteries make for a pleasant surprise, when "just sitting" on a charger. This is to say that I grew up rural, my siblings and I were largely uneducated; redneck kids playing a game we called "hammer toss" to pass the time.

Again I mention this only to contextualize; I jumped headfirst into Linux relatively recently, and for someone like me, this was a world full of people who had forgotten more than I had the chance of knowing. I don't start with Ubuntu, I want to be different. Stick it to the man. "What are some lightweight Linux Distros for old laptops?" My search engine quickly fills with the same sort of search over and over, finally: Bodhi Linux!

It's cute and weird and doesn't look anything like Windows, unfortunately, it sucks ass. To this day, I'm unsure of what's going on with Bodhi, much love to the team but waow. I don't even know if it's maintained. So it happens, as it always does, Distro Hopping. The good days. Ubuntu > Puppy Linux > Arch > Garuda > Quick stop for a persistent Kali USB > and Arch again. Meanwhile, the Arch Linux Wiki stays open in the background through it all, and my Homelab settles into some mix of Debian based Distros. "It's a good resource for everyone, even if you don't use Arch."

I skim it, over and over, but I barely absorb it. I had followed a YouTube tutorial for that first Arch install. Four hours for my first time, patting myself on the back thinking "Yeah, I get to say it now." The skimming and tutorial inevitably lead me to a system that "worked" but I barely knew what that meant. What does it mean for Arch to "work"? I move on and hop around, but I stop skimming.

But it wasn't Arch itself that stuck, though I do still use Arch to this day, I'm no Arch purist. Instead, it was a comment that was left by a moderator, that inexplicably upset me: "Help Vampire. Closed." I think to myself "What the hell? This person is literally just asking for advice? God this is why people hate the Arch community." But curiously I click the link, left behind in this mod's apathetic response. My jaw drops as it takes me to the first page of the Arch Wiki. My mind races; how many times have I ran to Reddit on the "burner of shame", screaming out "Oh god, I'm so overwhelmed someone please help me!" met only with similar comments? I thought I was being picked on for being uneducated. I'm decently smart, I do well in school, "It's just this one thing that is so far beyond me... I'm not a vampire." I lie to myself. Sitting in silence, oddly embarrassed, I think "I am a vampire." I realize that I want attention more than I want to fix it. I want someone's time and energy. More than anything, I want to be seen when I'm struggling. What I want is to drain an individual of their resources so that I have the energy to make it through this. I am a help vampire. I've got my own wiki link.

I've been thinking about these moments quite a bit recently, especially since coming here. I'm grateful to those who were kind enough to tell me to "fuck off" sometimes. We should be willing to help, at a moment's notice, but, it is up to us who have made the effort to learn to cultivate a space where learning is possible. I'm no super genius, or Arch Linux guru, but when the time comes; I hope I have what it takes to tell someone to "fuck off".