Edit: The good work someone has done is no excuse for anything.
> The problem is that the internet is not like any other time in human history: everything we ever say and do gets recorded and indexed, all readily available to anyone curious, for all of time. This is new, and it's something that society has not really adapted to yet. I think we will reach that point in a generation or two. But right now, it seems impossible to be forgiven for our past mistakes. They all add up and weigh us down like an albatross around our necks. Stay around on the internet long enough, and it will eventually crush even the best of us.
> I could go back and read the things written about me from 2015 by people I've since made peace with and anger myself again. But that's not who they are today: that's who they were.
> People change. I'm embarrassed myself seeing how I've acted in the past. I don't stand behind much of my old writing, some of it literally decades old now. I've been online since I was a teenager; obviously not everything has aged well. You don't have to forget the past, but you have to be willing to give people second chances in life.
Like all perfectionists, he's found that he's not always happy with his past self. He wants an undo button for reality. He knows he can't have it but is still unable to accept it. Even now.