It's been around the blogosphere lately. Someone very important and gifted in my particular industry has chosen to take their own life, and that makes me very sad. Well, it makes me sad, confused, frightened and more than a little pissed off.
Tobold is allowed his opinion I guess, but I'm allowed to disagree with it. In fact I'm allowed to disagree with it a shit ton.
I didn't know Mr. Freeman, not personally, not professionally, not even blogospherically, so I don't really have anything to say about him. What I do have something to talk about though is what all this has brought right to the forefront, the urge to kill oneself.
A. Killing yourself is a bad thing.
B. Suicide is not the result of having too much fun and happiness in your life.
C. What the fuck people?
Lets get that first point out of the way, killing yourself is bad. If you want I can give you all the line graphs and charts to prove it. For a data point we could hand out questionnaires to the family to chart their grief from 1 to 11, and then just keep a tally of the number that come back with "fuck you" written on them and the ones that don't come back at all since they probably get shredded and tossed. Suicide is painful, for everyone, and like people tend to say, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Which brings us to the problem. Best quote I've ever heard about suicide is that "suicide is simply the final result of when the pain in your life exceeds your coping mechanisms". Life sucks, and not everyone handles it the same, some just can't handle it at all. The worst part is when your coping mechanisms are all just stop gaps, and nothing ever gets fixed because the only thing that gets you to wake up tomorrow is pretending it doesn't exist. Hell, I can guarantee that it's past the point where you have given up hope that tomorrow will be better in some small way. Why? Because I've been there.
Now, you see, since you can't ever expect tomorrow to be better than today, and you're stuck watching the good things in life slip away bit by bit because you can't do anything, your self esteem is officially in the shitter. You're good for nothing, you tell yourself, everything you touch breaks, and all you can hear is how badly you failed at this or that. All your flaws are thrown into harsh light and nothing you do is good enough anymore, hell you wonder if it was ever good enough in the first place... which brings us to point C, what the fuck people? All this pent up good will for the guy and nobody gets to hear about it until he hates himself to death.
Yeah it's unfair of me, yeah this is just adding to your pain and guilt, but you know what, fuck it. Honestly you couldn't have made him happy all of the sudden, but who knows, maybe just knowing that someone was real frickin' happy with the stuff he created would have helped him get through to tomorrow. Maybe we should make writing a eulogy for everyone you know a yearly event, god knows Halloween could use some soul, so that people can see how someone else perceives them and how much they mean to everyone.
Of course, I'm only writing this because I'm scared. I've been there, that point where you stop believing tomorrow will be a better day... it's debatable whether I've ever left. All the good shit stops being good, and you can't find joy in doing the "fun" things because all they are now is an excuse to avoid the pain. The shit on your doorstep is piling up and the only way anyone else seems to deal with it is to get mad at you... snap you out of it, yeah 'cause thinking I've pissed you off with my inability to fix this is going to make me feel so much better.
I wish I could say this isn't about me, but, well, it's my blog and I'm too damn honest to pretend I'd write this much about someone I never knew. Although, there is one thing that really scares the ever loving shit out of me, how many other people are afraid of the exact same thing I am... afraid that when all is said and done, you're in the ground fertilizing daisies or floating on the winds as a bunch of soot, what if nobody says word one? What if you pass in silence, unmarked, unnoticed, and never really were all that important to anyone anyways?
And would you really want to know?
Posts
You and Tobold have point in there, both of you. The main thing is the fact that people who decide to /quit life have lost it all in the end. It's like you said, when there isn't even a hope that tomorrow is better than today, but the expectation that it's even worse.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, there is no-one in the world that can make the change on you than yourself. In this ungratifying world... no, the ungratifying western civilisation there will be no thanks nor cheers if you succeed in something. Just the grim back tapping and notion that someone else would have made it better.
On the other hand, I suspect I can honor suicide more than the recent 'extended suicides' we've seen in here. The Jokela and Kauhajoki school shootings are something I don't have any explanation to, and I honestly don't want to know what drives one to kill other people in their pain.
They say that we should thank other people more often, smile to strangers sincerely and value life and its small details more. It is not easy, but then again, it's pretty darn worth it.
Just appreciate yourself. That's a start.
Copra
I don't understand the lack of compassion for suicide -- either it's a catholic judgement relic, or it's because it scares people. There but for the grace of Prozac, or whatever. Then there's the Nietzscheans, of course, but if you ask me, N was one insecure mofo covering up with a lot of ubermensch talk. Still, not relevant.
ReplyDeleteBut yes. It would be good for people to practice a little more compassion all round. The Dalai Lama tells us so and he is one interesting dude.