Suicide pros & cons
(negotiations with one's conscience)
As suggested by the parentetical part of the title, this piece (written in the early 2000s during my umpteenth existential crisis) was basically me grappling with my own doubts and fears about the act that felt all but inevitable.
A note on the format: each 'Con' is a response (more or less) to the 'Pro' directly to its left.
Pros
The euthanasia argument: suicide is more acceptable (to one’s conscience if not to the law) if the alternative is unrelenting pain and misery; and after all, depres-sion/despair is unrelenting pain and misery.
Suicide is the ultimate catharsis: the apotheosis of inner rage and self-loathing.
According to contemporary science, “self” is the result of brain activity: no more brain means no more “self.”
Crazy hope of 11th hour reprieve — a life-altering epiphany or “divine intervention” — so long as the intention to depart is serious.
Existence is mostly painful, laborious and tedious.
Life is long but death is quick. One can decide to die, since suicide requires only one moment of effort and courage to succeed, but one cannot simply decide to live.
Fear of life.
It’s possibly the closest thing to an honorable response to the realization that one is unequal to life.
Cons
There’s no guarantee that death will bring total annihilation: there’s always the possibility of an afterlife and/or reincarnation and/or the phenomenon of eternal recurrence to perpetuate the burden of existence.
It isn’t necessarily or always death but a fuller and more purposeful experience of life that one most longs for.
Religions east & west tend to agree that “self” is ultimately derived from something that cannot be destroyed (see 1st ‘Con’ above).
Hundreds or even thousands of people each day commit suicide; where was their 11th hour reprieve?
Death might be worse (once again, see 1st ‘Con’ above).
One has made so many flawed and regrettable decisions over a lifetime. What would make this momentous and irreversible choice immune to error?
Fear of death.
It’s possibly a fallacy to assume that one who has proven too weak to face life can be strong enough to face death.†
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†This puts me in mind of a quote from the film THE NEW AGE, where a man is talking with his wife about his fear and despair, and about the possibility of suicide. After trying to bolster his case by using the example of a close mutual friend of theirs who was terminally ill and decided to end her suffering through suicide (or, as that character referred to it, “Self-Deliverance”), his wife chides him: “You haven’t earned your death.” Ouch!
It also calls to mind Kafka’s statement to himself regarding the thought of suicide: “You, who can’t do anything, think you can bring off something like that? How can you even dare to think about it? If you were capable of it, you certainly wouldn’t be in need of it.” Double ouch!