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I don’t know Dave. You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. Mazeltov.

Yeah, I guess my thoughts on the matter are pretty simple.

When I was close to suicide, it was because I thought that nobody gave a shit. When other people I’ve known have been ready to kill themselves, ditto. I think we have a responsibility to care about people who are suicidal, that this can help them. It helped me. Long-winded treatises along the lines “the world is a fucked up farce, ergo suicide make sense” are bullshit, perhaps even harmful, and need to be called out as such.

I think every able-bodied, sane person has the capacity to find a reason to live. That reason, I believe, is other people—taking an interest in other people and knowing that they’re there for you. These may be the musings of a simpleton, but fuck it. If someone’s depressed I want to help them, not say something that sounds like the world is a void, might as well…

Not Crap voters? Suck the AIDS out of my dick.

WF for euthanasia cases

Lemur, I'm not talking about euthanasia for the terminally ill. I'm talking about me and my friends offing ourselves because of depression.

To reiterate, CRAP.

tocharian wrote:Lemur, I'm not talking about euthanasia for the terminally ill. I'm talking about me and my friends offing ourselves because of depression.

To reiterate, CRAP.

My post was not a response to your post, with which I agree. Perhaps I was not explicit enough in stating it was Crap.

lemur68 wrote:Not Crap voters? Suck the AIDS out of my dick.

WF for euthanasia cases

Don't worry lemur. The Not Crap voters are of self-thinning ranks.


I'm kidding. I think.

Of the suicides I've known, all have killed themselves and left people broken as a result. Then again, of the people I've known who committed suicide, life was truly, truly a painful experience for them and I don't doubt that living was an effort.

I'm not going to vote, simply because I don't understand the impulse toward suicide anymore. I once did, but it has been replaced with a profound fear of death that is much deeper than any desire for death that i had. I know people who still have a death wish, and live their lives recklessly, but i can't do it and no longer understand it. So how could I vote?

Ace wrote:Of the suicides I've known, all have killed themselves and left people broken as a result. Then again, of the people I've known who committed suicide, life was truly, truly a painful experience for them and I don't doubt that living was an effort.

I'm not going to vote, simply because I don't understand the impulse toward suicide anymore. I once did, but it has been replaced with a profound fear of death that is much deeper than any desire for death that i had. I know people who still have a death wish, and live their lives recklessly, but i can't do it and no longer understand it. So how could I vote?

Do you know when this shift in your thinking happened?

fedaykin13 wrote:Do you know when this shift in your thinking happened?

It's happened slowly over the last few years. The more I read about history, and the more I talked with people about death, the more I understood that, in reality, no one really knows anything ABOUT death. The people I've known who killed themselves didn't kill themselves for any reason - They were depressed, yes, but they couldn't explain why they were so depressed, they just were. They had felt this way since they were extremely young. It's a clinical thing.
I don't have that. When I used to think about suicide, it was always in reaction to something; then I realized that hating yourself or your environment really has very little to do with actual DEATH and non-existence. What did I think death would provide? Why would I want something I have absolutely no conception of?

In fact, i can openly admit that i'm AFRAID of what I have no conception of.

So I can no longer understand hating myself and existence so much that I want to end it anymore, because death is entirely unrelated to those things.

Rick Reuben wrote:

tocharian wrote:If you value human life at all and have any sort of ethics you can’t say suicide is “maybe alright.”

If you value personal autonomy you can. If you're inclined to think that the will of society should trump the will of the individual, then maybe you can't.

tocharian wrote:I think every able-bodied, sane person has the capacity to find a reason to live.

You seem unable to believe that a sane person could also choose death. It takes more than a single reason to convince people to live- they have to believe that the good will outweigh the bad. Many people are imprisoned on this Earth. Several prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have chosen suicide. Were they insane, or were they, as sane people, unable to accept the insanity of their situation?

independent uk, 6-12-06 wrote:Three prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - two Saudis and a Yemeni - killed themselves over the weekend - the first successful suicides at the US prison camp since it opened in 2002 and the latest incident to highlight the fierce controversy over its continued existence.

The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Colleen Graffy, described the suicides as a "good PR move to draw attention".

Who looks sane in that story?

Look, people are often treated like bugs under glass by the lunatics running the great powers of the world. Why let them continue to get their sadism out against you? You're not the playtoy of demons. Take it away from them. I hope those men found peace. I won't say that they should have 'stuck it out'. No way.

Good points, Rick.

I think you’re conflating three different people, though. Let me attempt to distinguish them.

The first is an able-bodied, sane person like you or me who wants to kill him/herself out of despair. This person can be saved, I believe, by a meaningful connection with another human being.

The second is a torture victim whose captors have reduced his world to primal, excruciating pain. He receives no succor, psychological or physical. If this person chooses to die, it’s because his torturers were killing him. He has been murdered.

The third is an oppressed person who’s willing to die for his cause. I don’t agree with you that our choices are either to resign ourselves to being “treated like bugs under glass by the lunatics running the great powers of the world” or kill ourselves. The brave among us can fight, and possibly die. This is not suicide. This is heroism.

Rick Reuben wrote:

tocharian wrote:I think you’re conflating three different people, though.

No, I'm not. The only people I described in my post fit only into the second category you give. I made no mention of depressed people or oppressed people who die for causes. I know 'conflated' is a popular word, but it has no use in a commentary on my post above.

I respect anyone's right to end their life in any way or on any schedule they like, just for the record. I don't disrespect your right to try and talk them out of it, but I would never ever say that someone 'had no right' to kill himself.

Rick, i agree with you with the "had no right" thing.
Rick, i agree with you on something.
this is a miracle! a miracle!
the suicide thread, the sad stories, they all had the meaning: Rick and gaetano agree on the "had no right" thing.

now i will play the mandolino while looking at the Vesuvio and sing a romantic song for you, you that live far away, in some big city in the America...

(Rick, you agree with me that this thread needs a bit of the fake Italian? you agree? i know that you agree, my brother.
the fake italian, she's always in poor taste, that is why she's always in good taste.
the suicidal people, if you and me teach them the fake Italian, they will understand the life, the pizza, the mandolino, the Vesuvio...la bella vita!
ciao, Rick, ti voglio bene!).