|
|
| Suicide, In Defence Of
It is helpful, sometimes, to take a moment to consider suicide. As an option. It helps with perspective.
(Before going any further here, perhaps for the sake of lawyers and concerned friends, it should be clear that this text in no way recommends taking one’s own life or any self-destructive act, merely the honest and sober consideration of suicide).
In the late 80s sometime there was a cop show or movie - some procedural something that was otherwise utterly forgettable - wherein a suspect was held in an interrogation room. He was left alone for a minute in which he held his chin in one hand and the cap of his skull in the other and twisted quickly to snap his own neck, leaving him dead on the floor. This image is a sort of visual shorthand that can work wonders for reopening the cracks of heart and mind that are broken in the serious and unblinking contemplation of ending oneself.
The full course of suicidal consideration is an introspective and personal process, one that neither requires instruction, nor inspires communication. It is a dire thought and most often considered in the dark hours of ones existence, when one feels somehow trapped and such dire thoughts are close. Religious and social taboos also tend to frown on such dreadful things, preventing far too many sad folk from this experience. |
|
| For those that have sat with death for this conversation, it is a life changing experience, one way or the other. For those that do choose death, with the painlessness and finality that it implies, the circumstances must be dire indeed, unless it is simply an impoverished imagination that cannot see all of the stars that shine in such dark places. For those that do not die, life subsequently has a different and vivid meaning. The true specter of death may well be impossible in the mind of the living, but if you stare long enough into that nothing, there is a cold fire that forges skin. It is an opportunity to hold closely a no-me; the vast and sparkling universe with no point of perception; a ground with no foot to feel it and no foot to feel the lack of foot; the infinite possibilities without possibility of actualizing anything; no choices; no problems; no joy or hardship or time. Or some such.
And whatever form that despair takes, if the cut of that empty razor is truly felt, it also opens a formless well of potential and possibilities to the very concrete choices of life. Given the absurdity of not existing, any form of existing, however odd, is utterly plausible. It offers a a fearless creativity in facing choices of how to live well. Weighing suicide is a meditation of sorts, a particular type that forces cracks in the heart and mind that will leak ever after.
The lasting difference is manifest and evident in the survivors. Thought there is no lapel pin or handshake, they form a society of sorts, existential gnostics who recognize in each other something learned that cannot be shared and the abiding spark and gloom that it implies. And the option is always close, remembered in the happiest of times and the saddest, perhaps with the image of a man snapping his own neck followed by a grayish black that rushes out all thoughts as one closes her eyes and sighs, and opens them to a new world, vibrant with color. |
|
|
|
