On Suicide

         The true genius of humanity lies in its ability to ignore the uncomfortable truths that pervades it at every turn until there is no option left but to face it head on. If we were to focus on these truths day in and day out, work would cease and our societies would crumble. Some facts are so dreary and so inconceivable unstoppable that to look at them without stop would drive us mad. Such is the nature of death, with specific regards to suicide. This stems from humanities fear of the unknown, the blackness and finality of death, the overwhelming ignorance of the afterlife and the fear that we could always be next. Who can honestly say they have never thought of suicide, that they never once entertained the notion that ending their own life would be easier and quicker than carrying on in a world that is all-too-happy to chew them up and spit them back out.

         

         So instead of dealing with the facts, we rationalize them and trivialize them. We tell ourselves that suicide is selfish, that there must be something wrong with those that opt out of this life,  that we are somehow better than them. So nothing ever changes, because no one can bare to look at what is truly wrong with the world, so, generation to generation, we live in a world that is unfit to live in. We treat suicide as an abnormality, as an outlier, as the extreme option, without considering for a minute that suicide may be the only option. In this paper, I would like to outline many of the claims I have just made in regards to what suicide is, and why society has it all wrong,

         

         To anyone who has ever had firsthand experience with attempting suicide personally or with someone who has, one of the first things you'll hear is that suicide is somehow selfish. That by taking their lives, they are committing the most high act of selfishness known to man. How ironic it is that society would decide that it is selfish for an individual to decide to cease their own existence, the most personal and private decision one could make. That society should deem it a moral necessity to drudge through any problems you may face, no matter how bleak and how impossible they may be, just so that no one is forced to deal with your non-existence. You must continue your pain, no matter how overwhelming, so that others won't have to feel theirs. The ultimate hypocrisy is being done a scale so grand that it is almost impossible to see. How dare society tell anyone how to live their lives, let alone that they must live their lives. Who are you to say that it will get better, that the light is at the end of tunnel. The simple truth is that sometimes it doesn't get better. Sometimes the well of life is just dry and people just don't have the energy to go on anymore. And to deny them the dignity to do so on their own terms and to disgrace their names and their choices after death is sickening and disturbing. It is selfish to demand that someone live a life that they do not want just for your own pleasure. It is selfish to shame those that seek to end the pain into carrying on another day just so that you don't have to deal with the unfortunate fact that everyone must die sometime, others have just taken that into their own hands.

         

         Next, society likes to pretend that there must be something wrong with those who commit suicide. That there must have been an imbalance in their brain or that their life must have been a wreck beyond repair. But it is mine that this kind of attitude is fundamentally flawed and disrespectful of those who have opted out. The simple fact is that sometimes the most rational and well-adjusted solution to a problem is to call it quits. Sometimes life can be fine, life can be great even, but sometimes people just simply run out of energy. They don't have the energy or the drive to carry on. And it's not fair or moral to blame them or to shame them for feeling that way or for choosing that option. We should instead respect their choice and their lifestyle and let them die in peace. To sit around and placidly speculate about why they would choose to end their lives shifts the focus onto the wrong issues. The focus should not be placed on the last moments of life but on the full life they lived before that. On the happiness and joy they brought to the world while they were part of it. We must not allow suicide to overpower the memories we had of them before they decided to leave us.

         

         Finally we use their suicides as a way to pat ourselves on the back. "Look how much I've been through, and I'm still standing strong. I've never even considered suicide." I say how horrible and how disgusting such an attitude is. How dare you, me, or anyone use the death of someone as a way to assure ourselves of our own strength. Are we so shallow and so self-conscious that we cannot even for a minute let the dead rest before we must use their memory, the only thing we have left of them, to fulfill our own needs? Let the dead stay dead, respect these men and women's final wishes to die.

         

         It is time for us to let the dead stay where they are. We must break the social shackles of suicide and see it for what it is, the means to an end. The end is peace, tranquility, and quietness. We must no longer shame the memories of those who made a choice harder than any we can possibly describe. We should remember these men and women for who they are what they did while they were alive, not how they chose to exit the stage of life. It is their life to choose what to do with, not ours. So next time someone tells you how selfish and cowardly suicide is, don't sit back and listen as we have done for years, but instead tell them how selfish and cowardly it is to disgrace the memory of someone for such a petty point.