Thread: Why Not Commit Suicide?

There is no reason to live, but there is also no reason to die.

I stumbled upon this forum googling the phrase "why suicide makes perfect sense". Seriously interesting thread This will be a rather long post, but I have a lot to say.

I advocate suicide as a human right. Noone can know better than the individual if life is worth continuing. Some people argue that this is only valid when serious physical illness is involved. I beg to differ. We all know that the mind is inherently physical, and while the brain certainly has a great degree of plasticity to it, we are all born with personalities which by definition have to be ingrained in our brains, somehow. "Chemical imbalance" is such a cliché now that I laugh when I read it, however I don't think nurture can be the whole story here. It certainly is a crutch for a lot of people who do not take responsibility for their own wellbeing. But I believe some people are born prone to depression. Some people might not grow up in an environment where this proneness (or "wiring", as it were) expresses itself fully. This is a good thing. However in some cases, unless artificial and selective amnesia is induced in depressed individuals (of which I have no idea if has been performed), I believe certain people can never recover from their depression. And since we cannot know how a person feels, or if their pain is worse or even comparable to that of a "purely physical illness" such as cancer, we as bystanders are not fit to judge. So the moral aspect of it is sound. While I think it is a personal right to committ suicide, I do NOT condone the act as a means of emotional blackmail.

I think OP makes a good point in

Originally Posted by Original Poster

To live suicidally means nothing more than understanding some day you will kick the bucket and everything you want will become meaningless. Everything you lack will become meaningless. All your expectations will become meaningless. This is inevitable, so why not have it now?

It is a wonderful idea, and I routinely come to this conclusion, after a bout of depression. When I really hit the lowest depth, I ask myself the question: "Why not try to live carelessly for a while, instead of attempting suicide?" Then I live by the "careless philosophy" for a day or two.

Here I think the problem arises when you try to practise this in real life; living carelessly. I can embrace this attitude for a couple of days; walking across the road genuinely trying to avoid a car accident, while not actually caring if I die. Drinking just as to be tipsy and not blacking out and ending up on the floor somewhere. But why should I not just go with the flow and see how drunk I can get, as momentarily it feels like the thing to do? After all, I don't give a shit. Professionally and academically the problem gets even bigger. I cannot perform if I don't tie a purpose of some kind to the work I do.
And it becomes more clear romantically: if you were to do as Louis in the referred episode, and not care how you come across to the opposite sex, maybe it will work. But if it does, wouldn't you suddenly start caring again? And once this relationship fails (as I assume it does), how do you not care about this? If you never cared, what was the point of the exercise? What I'm trying to say is that I find it impossible to gain or lose something and simultaneously not attach some meaning and significance, however fickle, to it. I think we are hardwired to -care- and to expect some things in life, as a driving force for accomplishment. And without this, we become conscious, pointless spectators in our own lives.

I must admit, I haven't thought much about suicide in years, but this kind of messes with my head again.

Because you can't experience positive emotions when you're dead. I'd much rather enjoy myself and keep breathing.

Originally Posted by Gerbel

I stumbled upon this forum googling the phrase "why suicide makes perfect sense". Seriously interesting thread This will be a rather long post, but I have a lot to say.

I advocate suicide as a human right. Noone can know better than the individual if life is worth continuing. Some people argue that this is only valid when serious physical illness is involved. I beg to differ. We all know that the mind is inherently physical, and while the brain certainly has a great degree of plasticity to it, we are all born with personalities which by definition have to be ingrained in our brains, somehow. "Chemical imbalance" is such a cliché now that I laugh when I read it, however I don't think nurture can be the whole story here. It certainly is a crutch for a lot of people who do not take responsibility for their own wellbeing. But I believe some people are born prone to depression. Some people might not grow up in an environment where this proneness (or "wiring", as it were) expresses itself fully. This is a good thing. However in some cases, unless artificial and selective amnesia is induced in depressed individuals (of which I have no idea if has been performed), I believe certain people can never recover from their depression. And since we cannot know how a person feels, or if their pain is worse or even comparable to that of a "purely physical illness" such as cancer, we as bystanders are not fit to judge. So the moral aspect of it is sound. While I think it is a personal right to committ suicide, I do NOT condone the act as a means of emotional blackmail.

I think OP makes a good point in




It is a wonderful idea, and I routinely come to this conclusion, after a bout of depression. When I really hit the lowest depth, I ask myself the question: "Why not try to live carelessly for a while, instead of attempting suicide?" Then I live by the "careless philosophy" for a day or two.

Here I think the problem arises when you try to practise this in real life; living carelessly. I can embrace this attitude for a couple of days; walking across the road genuinely trying to avoid a car accident, while not actually caring if I die. Drinking just as to be tipsy and not blacking out and ending up on the floor somewhere. But why should I not just go with the flow and see how drunk I can get, as momentarily it feels like the thing to do? After all, I don't give a shit. Professionally and academically the problem gets even bigger. I cannot perform if I don't tie a purpose of some kind to the work I do.
And it becomes more clear romantically: if you were to do as Louis in the referred episode, and not care how you come across to the opposite sex, maybe it will work. But if it does, wouldn't you suddenly start caring again? And once this relationship fails (as I assume it does), how do you not care about this? If you never cared, what was the point of the exercise? What I'm trying to say is that I find it impossible to gain or lose something and simultaneously not attach some meaning and significance, however fickle, to it. I think we are hardwired to -care- and to expect some things in life, as a driving force for accomplishment. And without this, we become conscious, pointless spectators in our own lives.

You bring up a good point. I don't mean to say that you shouldn't care about anything simply because one day none of it will matter. What I mean to say is that because none of your values live after you, they're not objectively valuable at all. They are subjectively valuable. We do things because we want to, we prioritize because we idealize our greatest possible happiness and plan to get it. When we meet choices that force us to consider the best route to our goal, we make them based on values we gave them, not on values God gave us or anything else. We are responsible for the people we are and the reason why we're that. We are responsible for our reality itself, because there's no reason to even believe objective reality just because it's objective if you die anyways. What was the point of trying to be right about everything then? What was the point of shying away from life when the only risk was failure? You hold the strings to your personal show, there's no reason to end it early but it will end, so make it into something you want to experience.

Ok, guys. I actually wanted to kill myself once, back when I was a snivelling idiot. But when I actually got prepared for that, I discovered that it wasn't as easy as I thought. That killing oneself requires a lot of courage.

The funnieset thing was that when I plucked up enough courage to kill myself, I suddenly realized that with such amoung of courage I can live on. With that amount of courage my issues weren't scary any longer.

That's why I don't understand how you can kill yourself. It requires so much bravery that once you have it, you don't have a reason to die anymore. You can face everything and don't need to escape.

Originally Posted by Intfere

Ok, guys. I actually wanted to kill myself once, back when I was a snivelling idiot. But when I actually got prepared for that, I discovered that it wasn't as easy as I thought. That killing oneself requires a lot of courage.

The funnieset thing was that when I plucked up enough courage to kill myself, I suddenly realized that with such amoung of courage I can live on. With that amount of courage my issues weren't scary any longer.

That's why I don't understand how you can kill yourself. It requires so much bravery that once you have it, you don't have a reason to die anymore. You can face everything and don't need to escape.

Chicken.