Inspirational People

I got the idea for this thread yesterday when a guy on TL was asking netizens to name famous people from history that had enormous impacts in their fields or in the way people live their lives.

I'm not going to ask necessarily for people to mention the same types of people. Just name people that you have found to be inspirational, with a brief explanation of why, and potentially where to find more information (I expect lots of wikipedia links hehe).

I have a few in mind myself, but I want to take more time to think about it before I post them. In the meantime: go nuts people!

Peter "Legionnaire" Neate, Australian progamer. Did the first ever all-kill in a professional match, held the most kills from a reaver in a televised match for a while and even beat boxer a couple of times.

Oh man just had a talk about this a buddy of mine yesterday...

John Frusciante: Definitely. He's argued one of the best guitar players of our generation, most notable band he played for was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's an inspirational dude because as most 90s rock stars, he was a drug addict. Shot up heroin, acid, cocaine, you name it. It got to the point where he just stopped playing for the band and secluded himself in a little apartment. According to him, he fell under the pressure of being famous(they literally got famous overnight with their album Blood Sugar, Sex, & Magik) and fell into all those bad habits. Johny Depp actually did a short documentary on him while he was all drugged out; he takes a camera around his apartment and you see how shitty he lives and how low he actually got; its really disturbing.

However what makes him so inspirational is he lived through what so many other artists died in. He was able to pull himself out his shithole life, stay clean, return to the Chili Peppers, make another great album, and then leave the band to pursue different musical interests. Great guy, great guitar player, and definitely inspirational in my book. I'll post a few links from youtube and you guys can check them out if you wish.

Other people include Jimi Hendrix(he is considered the "Guitar God" after only being 4 years in the business; to accomplish what he did in 4 years is just amazing), Gang Starr aka the Guru(underground rapper from the East Coast that passed away last year due to cardiac arrest at age 43, one of the first rappers I ever listened to and definitely had a positive message in almost all his songs), Buddy Guy(in my opinion the best guitar player currently in the world; his life story is just too long to write in a sentence, but he is definitely an inspirational dude if you decide to look him up; him and B.B. King are truly living legends).

Yeah all my inspirational people are from the music industry. What can I say? Music has a special place in my heart :).

John Frusciante Interview during his Drug Days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKc9B-Eh3Ak

Johny Depp Documentary "STUFF": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7oJ7-Xjpg

John Frusciante Interview in 2002 Pt.1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9E8livzmRM&feature=related

John Frusciante Cover of Beegees Song "How Deep is your Love" :): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tKQWvNZT0k&feature=related

Yeah I look up to this guy a lot :).

Man, I am totally with you on John Frusciante, the guy is awesome. I've seen a few of his interviews but I don't think I've seen that 2002 one, I'll check it out.

I find the following people inspirational:

• Lim Yo Hwan (SlayerS_`BoxeR`) - He literally is the reason I ever got into non money maps back in the days when i was a fastmap fiend. He played a game against a protoss on lost temple where he dropped the tanks in the corner of the base, then used the dropship to lure the goons away from the mineral line before sending in the tanks, sieging up, and raping a bunch of probes while the goons chased the dropship. Seems simple, til you realise he had macro'd up a huge army in the meantime and went on to do more rape with pure vulture vs goon. It was the first time I saw anything really strategic (there is like no strategy in fastmap besides unit counters) and it blew my mind. I think it's also why I became a Terran player.
  
  
• Richard Dawkins - mostly for his writing, but also for some of his documentaries, like The Genius of Charles Darwin. The way he can talk about rather complex topics but make them so clear and accessible to a wide variety of audiences is something not found often in scientific people. Everyone should read at least the God Delusion and definitely watch The Genius of Charles Darwin.

I'll probably update this as I think of more..