Thank You.

Today I am using this place for the rightest of reasons. 

Today the internet lost a pioneer and a good friend. 

And that seems like such concrete fact. 

I should say who it is I am talking about, too. 

Mr. Peter Oakley, perhaps better known as geriatric1927 was, and in a sense, still is, one of the most influential YouTubers, as well as someone who inspired and encouraged me to create and write and make music and to keep doing whatever it is that I do and upload it to the internet to somehow be shared. 

And I didn't get to properly thank him. 

But then I know that even if I did, I still wouldn't feel as if I did. 

And that says a lot. 

I don't really feel sad. 

Of course I feel sad for his family, and I will miss him, but I don't feel sad. Not in a way that perhaps I should. 

Had I known Mr. Oakley in a world where he didn't have his YouTube channel, I would be incredibly sad, in a way that perhaps I should. 

I would feel that the world had lost someone, a perspective filled with history forever. 

But I don't feel that way. 

His YouTube channel has 434 videos. 

Videos in which he tells his life story, from the past and to the present, an archive from someone who was so honest and genuine and kind to so many that even now his creations can inspire others to do the same, to get those who they want to share, elderly or young, to  make accessible their lives. 

To make the world perhaps better. 

To make knowledge truly global. 

To make personal lives shown honestly and truthfully to others in a way that will give an understanding of connection in a connected world of disconnect. 

To simply be, and still inspire. 

I think that is what the internet is for. 

On so many levels I feel that and I know it has its seedy underbelly and things that are damaging to all involved and yet I forgive it wholly because there are so many great things and people and things that can build us up and cause us to crumble and stories that will sweep us up and reconstruct us and anything imaginable. 

Things that without people like him, would not exist. 

Thank you, Peter, for all that you did, have done, and continue to do. 

-Ranger.