Tyler James Johnson: In Memoriam

I would sometimes wonder where Tyler was and what he was doing, how he was handling international borders, earning income, what language he was speaking, whether he was using telecommunication infrastructure, etc…. so many little life details that had to be handled differently. But I always came to the same vague conclusion that he was enjoying his life experience, that he was putting his relative “freedom” to good use, that he was better off as a fugitive than with Billy Cottrell passing the days practicing prison-reform activism from the inside. I took strength knowing that whatever bad place Tyler had landed in following the events of August 2003, there was no one more capable and resourceful than Tyler to make the best possible subsequent decisions and even redefine for himself and for all the rest of us what it really means to “be free”. I would wonder about my own life: am I putting my own freedom to good use, am I doing enough to help others in the world achieve their own political, social or economic liberation? Tyler was an activist—admittedly an extremist—but his ideas and actions where honest and consistent. I wonder if ever future generations will be more generous towards Tyler’s kind of activism. Just as we vigorously prosecute violent crime over a more benign property crime; perhaps “ecology crimes” or “resource crimes” will also trump property crime as humans better define the goals they hold in common with one another. It doesnt appear that we as a species are taking this route, yet I have no doubt that this is the morally correct path and I think that was Tyler’s point.

I remember in class at caltech with Tyler, the prof handing candy bars to the unshaven, dirty, dreadlocked half-math-half-beast who actually did the hardass extra-credit “Information and Complexity” problems—all you have to do is feed this peculiar animal and *it* does mathematical proofs for you!

or the stickers on the I-210 overpass reminding everyone in pasadena to unite under a common system of units: GO METRIC!

or the extreme skateboarding movies…some of the most expensive skateboarding footage the world has (n)ever seen.

It is tremendously sad to read of Tylers parents and sister broadcasting their love out to him because he didnt feel capable of safely contacting and communicating with them. And then after these six years to have this terrible, tragic news. My thoughts are with the Johnson family….