Friday, December 21, 2018

suicide sort of

A rainy day and grey with a reflection on suicide filling the email inbox.

Suicide. The weight and freight of getting older and aching more ... the mind ravels and unravels simultaneously. Reduction follows reduction (medication follows medication) until, well, why should suicide be given a bad rap?

The idea of leaving a mess for others to cope with may be offensive, but everyone is everyone else's mess, aren't they? Pardon the observation, but isn't this what keeps things lively? Enfin, isn't it even as the glib-lipped pronounce? -- "it is what it is." Medication follows medication and ... now what?

Go in peace.
Or not.
Your choice.
No blow-back.

Or, if there is blow-back, how would anyone know for sure without testing the waters?

Is there some honor to be siphoned from this life? A bit of love, a bit of kindness? Sure.
And dishonor as well. Why should death, by whatever hand, require an A+? Aren't we all more in the B- or C-ish category if we're lucky? But when there's no one left to grade the papers, what grade can reasonably be decided? Sins of omission, sins of commission are there to meet and greet and, well, there's no reversing the flow.

When word spread in an ancient Buddhist monastery that a particular monk's understanding of enlightenment had been approved by his teacher, the other monks gathered around to congratulate the lucky fellow (at least in my fragile and iffy memory banks). And he was asked, "What changed? Are your problems erased?" And the monk replied, "Nope. Same old problems."

2 comments:

  1. There was a time when I considered suicide as an option. Death seemed better than living in a hell world where things like "love", "kindness" and "mercy" are so often seen as a weakness and abhorrent, while cruelty is a sign of strength and where lies are not a hiccup in reality but the very fabric of it.

    At some point, I got so depressed with life that I nearly committed the act. I was stopped at the last moment by the vision of my grieving mother. That was one mess I could not leave her to clean up and one I knew it would never go away, not until she went as well.

    After that day, I decided that, somehow, I had to find strength to live on, however tough it might be and feel living without joy. At some point it also crossed my mind that while suicide would destroy my mother, it might also give a few people a reason to celebrate.

    I won't do their dirty work.

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  2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2018/09/04/colin-kaepernick-nikes-just-do-has-controversial-origin/1192872002/

    Do or do not. No hesitation!

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