There are a lot of things that people repeat over and over until it gets accepted as some universal truth. The police are on your side, the soldier is fighting for your freedom, US is the land of the free, respect your elders, family are more important than anyone else, and so forth. One of these thing that I keep on hearing people say is that "suicide is not the answer".
Why not? See the interesting thing about indoctrinated lies that people learn from constant exposure to these ideas since they are children is that these concepts never have much of an argument to them. They are never really justified, just repeated to the point that people repeat it themselves. I heard many times that suicide is not the answer in my life. But no one ever said why it is not.
Suicide can be a means to deal with a problem. Suppose that a person is in a lot of pain. He has no more reason to keep on living. Why should he continue to suffer if he can die peacefully? I would argue that it makes more sense for him to kill himself (or delegate that right to someone else so that his friend can kill him) in such a condition.
A lot of friends think it is noble to say "I will never assist you in suicide", but why is that a noble statement? You are a friend, you are supposed to be there for him in his darkest hour. And your friend has thought through his position and came to the sad conclusion that his life needs to end. If you do not help him then you are a bad friend. I am not talking about whether you can make yourself to help him or not. That is a different issue. You might want to help him but be too weak to assist his death. I am talking about a friend who refuses to help him and think he is doing the right thing. Why not assist?
Or perhaps a dreadfully lonely person who has lived half his life, all alone, and cold. He has no goals, he has nothing to aspire to. He just works everyday. And been doing that for most of his life. Does such a person really have a life? Not really. He is really a drone, in a way, for his employer, a personal machine for his boss. Say this person wants to end his life. Is it really so bad? How is suicide not the answer? Why should he continue to live through his terrible life until he dies?
Suicide is sometimes the answer.
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I wholeheartedly agree. Assuming we have dropped any notion of God or "a higher purpose", than there is no reason why suicide should not be an answer. We are all destined for complete oblivion anyway, why should someone suffer for years (months, days, minutes, etc.) for nothing?
ReplyDeleteI actually have been having a similar question about keeping Mitzvos - I am amazed at how long and for how many times people are capable of repeating the same action daily (,hourly, weekly.. what have you), say, for example, putting on Tefillin or brachos, with absolutely no tangible gains whatsoever and no guarantee there ever will be any - for years on end!
Of course suicide is the answer sometimes! I hate it how people always say it´s coward to commit suicide. I believe is one of the bravest things to do. It takes great courage to give up on the only thing that´s really yours. I can´t understand why does people have to make such a great deal out of it when is not even their life what´s on stake, it is not their choice to make. Also you can get tired of living and it´s valid for you to feel that way. It´s not like i´m suicidal myself but i completely agree with you that it´s preferable to die before living turns into a real hell on earth. I recently went to a man´s funeral. He suffered terribly because of cancer and his family would do anything to keep him alive. He had no hope to survive and yet he lived. Is hard to let go on someone you love, so hard, that sometimes your love makes you hurt people you love. Great entry by the way!
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