Suicide Response I believe that people commit suicide for many different reasons. Sometimes people who commit suicide don't want to die as much as they want some kind of attention. Those who truly want to die have passed a point that most people would find hard to understand...is it not natural for most humans to want to live? Suicide like death itself is an event that one experiences alone, but the impact I believe is greatest not for the one who has died, but for those who continue living wondering why. If you are considering suicide...consider the living. If you decide to live...then live like your going to die tomorrow. This puts a great deal into perspective.
I guess that's the point. Suicide and truly living life are done by those who are "All-or-nothing". It just depends which end of the spectrum they end up at. But they refuse to be in the middle. The mundane, mechanic lives we see so many people working their ways through.
I recently finished reading a book titled: Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. This unfortunate man spent three years in various concentration camps during WW2. He lost his young wife and several other family members in the camps. A theme of the early chapters is the question of why a person should want to live when his family has been murdered and his life is a torment. Frankl gives a number of reasons why a man should want to continue to live. Of these I was only impressed by Nietzsche's quote: "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." Suicide was a daily occurrence in the camps. Of course, to prevent someone from committing suicide was itself a crime punishable by death. But under those conditions, if a man decided to run into the electric fence, would my trying to stop him be an act of mercy or an act of sadism? Frankl describes wanting to wake a man from a violent nightmare: "I shall never forget how I was roused one night be the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At the moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him." With Nietzsche's quote in mind, I think I could endure nearly anything as long as I thought my wife were waiting for me. Otherwise, I'm quite sure I would have given away my life in the camps. I once heard a story about a group of women waiting their turn to be gassed. An SS officer happened to recognize a well-known dancer in the group. He demanded that she dance for him. She did dance for him, but in doing so she managed to get close enough to grab his gun and shoot him, before herself being shot. I don't know if this story is true or if it's only the result of wishful thinking. I'd like to think that I wouldn't simply "run into the wire," but that I'd also choose to die in an act of defiance; but who could really know what they'd do in such a situation? If I thought they'd killed my wife I might as easily curl up in a ball and will that my heart should stop beating. There was a passage in Frankly's book that might stay with me for a while. He tells of having been being forced to rise before dawn and march across a snow covered field to spend the day digging in the frozen earth. Meanwhile, a guard walked along the line occasionally administering a rifle butt to the head of a prisoner thought not to be working hard enough. The prisoners generally had only a few scraps of leather for shoes, no winter coat and certainly no gloves. He and his fellow prisoner's are walking skeletons; most suffering from dysentery and edema. Yet on one such morning a prisoner working next to Frankl nudged him and said, "Look at how beautifully the sun is rising through the trees." But suppose hydrogen had not condensed into our sun. There would be no prisoner to remark at how beautiful it is rising through the Austrian Pines. There would be no Austrian Pines. The essence of the Absurd is that what we most treasure, matters not-a-jot in the larger scheme of things. The world only provides a world; we provide the meaning. The world comes to us in kit-form. We have to figure out how it "goes together." Unfortunately, we've no instruction manual. Philosophy is an attempt to compose just such a manual. Absurdity releases us from having to find a global meaning (there simply is none to be found). All we have to provide is a local, inner meaning. To think a sunrise beautiful or the heart of one's beloved pure, is to provide such meaning. Meaning is our antidote to Sartre's nausea, and the highest meaning comes to us through our love. Meaningful love is approached through our humility. Thomas Nagel wrote: "Humility falls between nihilistic detachment and blind self-importance." The nihilist cannot love, neither can the eccentrically conceited. I am the epicenter of my world, but I am assuredly not at the epicenter of the world (I rather doubt the world has an epicenter). Humility is the acceptance that my life, and the life of those I love, are ultimately of no importance. We are ultimately nothing. Our love for each other is, however, everything. Love stands at the apex of meaning; it could never be meaningless because it only exists as meaning. In his book Truth and Existence, the philosopher, Michael Gelvin, begins his penultimate chapter: ”The dog, struck by a car, lies yapping pitifully on the highway, its back broken. Death would be merciful, but the organism continues to function. It is senseless, unendurable torment, serving no purpose. The radiant girl, with vibrant youth and stunning beauty, plays the Beethoven violin sonata with such bold energy and yet exquisite touch that all who hear are moved to a rapture of joyous confusion, whether to yield to her feminine loveliness, her brilliant performance, or Beethoven’s genius… The television camera, from the earth-orbiting satellite, scans the small, blue planet, on which we, six billion tiny specks, procreating and dying, pollute the globe and pass on meaninglessly into forgotten history…" We will, all too soon pass into "forgotten history." The dog's misery will finally end and the last echo of the girl's sonata will eventually die away, but it never will be the case that I have not loved. No history of the world would be complete without the fact that I found meaning in my wife's eyes, in J.S. Bach's Partitas and in the wild cherry blossoms that bloom near my house in the Spring. These represent my "why" to live. With these I would always be glad to postpone my death till another day. Without these my dying today would be no worse a prospect than dying tomorrow. Michael
orthogonal, Great post! I have often said to others "When looking for meaning in your life stop falling to your knees and looking to the sky for answers, look within, long and hard. It shall not be easy, but the rewards are endless." On another note, I would love to die for a cause. I don't know if that still constitutes suicide, but to go down in a big act of defiance, as you put it, would be a great way to have meaning even in your death.
Exactly. Some people have a distorted perception that if they kill more people, thier message will get across to other people. Actually, it is the complete opposite. A group of martyrists that just blow thier own brains out in the middle of New York would get national attention. I, personally, will die pretty soon. It is a matter of making people realise that Americans are twisted people that sit on thier asses and dont try to help any people that are dying in other countries. Not only the people, but we are primarily using resources from other countries and keeping our "natural beauty." Time for a wake up call.
I would say the greatest flaw is to assert to know something, anything.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! *Therefore asserting to know that monotheism is correct is a flaw.*
Not me. I have a wonderful wife, great kids, and beautiful grandkids. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Color of life! Doctor’s regularly indicate that Suicidal feelings are health disorders. I think that when individual began to see the colors of life in black-n-whites, and the grays begin to flourish, it is about time to get quality help! :m:
An interesting article apprears in this month's (February, 2003) Scientific American Magazine, titled: "Why? The Neuroscience of Suicide" You can find the full article at: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=0006AF90-5BC7-1E1B-8B3B809EC588EEDF Michael
Anyone who commits suiside because of 'the absurdity of life' is selfish and too wraped up in themselves. If you can't see past absurdity and see love and fun you're just taking yourself and the world far to seriously. These people aren't brave. They destroy peoples lives and disolusion more. Killing yourself because of pain of terminal illness is different because there are good reasons. There is no point in having a beating heart if you can't do anything with it.
These people arent wrapped up in themselves and selfish. If every day was Hell for you, then im sure you would want to die. These people do something like this when they cant see any love no matter how hard they look, when they look they only find pain. These people cant stand being a part of "a world gone mad". These people ARE brave. Their own lives have been destroyed by their tormenters. While i dont think that they should go to such an extreme, I can sympathize with them.
True, but they would admit that, and tell you it doesn't matter... Nothing does... We are focusing more on the people who commit suicide because of the "absurdity of life" not because of pain or torment. You make a valid point, but in the wrong debate, lol. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
They arent brave? You kill yourself, or better yet, kill me. Too wrapped up in themselves? Have you ever considered killing yourself? I seriously doubt it. Taking the world too seriously? How do you see the world? A joke? Do you think that little kids dying from starvation is a joke? I think your mind is clouded. Ok, your last statement.... If they cant so anything with their lives, they should end it? I am lost to your consistency.
Ahh the familiar topic of suicide, as the twilight eases itself into the sky and the few bright yet lonely stars are illumiated through the thin haze of the deep gray clouds against the dark blue night. Anyway, suicide is something that does take a bit of courage, but I am also a firm believer that it takes more courage to live than to die. Either way, my man Shakespeare has a poin in Hamlet "who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death,--The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns,—puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action." If you are going to do it, don't let your senses keep you in a place where you don't want to be. It is all about how you see thing; are you afraid to die and go into hell, heaven, nothingness, reincarnation, or are you so sick of being here that you don't care what is out there and would rather chance the unknown. I say chance the unknown without killing yourself; stop sewing the quilt and look at the pattern you are weaving, you may find that there is something you would rather do and could enjoy, you just haven't seen it yet. But I wouldn't recommend drifting, trust me limbo sucks, so do something mundane as long as it takes you in a direction and hope that it will put you somewhere you want to be; meanwhile, in your free time, look for it and enjoy what you have left to enjoy.
