Is suicide ever ethical?

[QuickTwist]

I've been debating this for a little while. It seems the biggest reason, ethically, not to commit suicide is because it will hurt others in the process. So what happens when it doesn't hurt anyone? Is it still unethical in the case where no one will miss you? To what degree to which people will not miss you in order for suicide to be OK to do? On top of this I will just throw a is suicide rational as well.

 

[Haim]

There is no good or evil in this world,just in one single human mind.You got a gift called life,throwing that gift is a stupid act or simply immature,exaggeration of not that big issues and not appreciating the gift you have.

 

[QuickTwist]

There is no good or evil in this world,just in one single human mind.You got a gift called life,throwing that gift is a stupid act or simply immature,exaggeration of not that big issues and not appreciating the gift you have.

Life is a painful experience more than a joyous one. Honestly, how many people do you think are actually happy in this world?

 

[Thurlor]

Suicide is not even an ethical or moral issue. AFAIK morality and ethics deal with how we treat others.


@Haim

I don't see how life can be a gift. Gifts require a giver and a receiver. Prior to one's existence they aren't a receiver so there can be no gift giving.

 

[QuickTwist]

Thanks dad.

 

[Thurlor]

Thanks dad.

But, can it be said that your father truly gave you a gift if you were not yet alive to receive a gift? Did he intend for 'you' to be born or just any offspring or were you an accident?

 

[QuickTwist]

I think he just wanted to get off, honestly.

 

[QuickTwist]

6vBcZPnALxuP1MEGF5AQ3isybB0q8sUjbZUlpbKGmzA5/7MvBekhMzMhI2V/0LKcB35OWQTa+lMzKLrMf0KlD6ZeZlEm4d5uITMzIamJUvKsZ2OZ/7i62LodA4skuA9Gtiq8hfreP1qOITEwIaQ8xdQpHEdmxOLzcuFwtcajreYaOyExNjAhn7ePYxQUA8BKL4y1y+8=
dHB7ITEyIYrZMKU8XR/N3LQxkwOAITMzIfI8D1Q79rKPZLTy1HUxPU0hMzQh9WNDmFHF14XyITkheVmxxy6YleP+TRrLqM5gx0Uw0PnMznvWSvmWuucGke20swRb9sm4iPS4rvwhMTIhLiEzNCEblSB2+8cgfjBK9v53skCOXTNegfiM1z5DAgHonzVXXO0wTyBzLa5dlrOnpUT0aiExMiFB99qBbo9fSR4x12uJ75pGA0/JhBWOZYhnvjCCeLHNisRG3EZ4xeoslDSBNh5o3uozK1UYuqXFBx1aZSjza0PhI1hj+sxxT18IITExIeQa/O0DM3k0dCMQO3NrfJivqVHdxtEOv+MTifZhGFrmn6S/Q/ow2SEzMyFWH+U++nvmfSEwIY/X8KNDuWXvW42sctDzgCXmtSlt+TDEGbr66a8xMEHN

Just kidding.

 

[Tannhauser]

What if your suicide saves 2 other lives? (classic philosophy 101 problem)

 

[QuickTwist]

what if it saves 1.00000000000000001 lives?

 

[nanook]

hating your parents and hating your life is a synonym. it's a choice you make. you don't have to "like" your parents (or interact with them), in order to live your life. but you have to be grateful. it's psychologically and logically impossible to be resentful for the specific life you were given, which is a life that is shaped by those parents and their circumstances AND to not also resent your life at the present moment. we don't get what we want in life. some do occasionally, some do rarely. the frustration about this must be handled in any way that does not include accusation of anyone at all. you can't accuse yourself, your parents or the people around you, because accusation is a form of energetic contraction in your ego, that makes your experience miserable and is likely to prevent improvements to your situation. accusation means telling the story that things could be different from how they are but that you can't change them, because, according to the story, it's up to someone else to make the difference, miraculously in the past, or miraculously by changing who they are. what a fucking delusional story that is. the truth is that benevolent change is only happening inside of you and in the present moment, but it's often not a kind of change that fits well into the story that you see yourself in, so it's rejected by ego mind. being grateful for life does of course not imply being grateful for the story that you tell yourself about life. this story is your own fantasy, in a way it's your own stupidity (relatively speaking) and if it hurts, you better let it go, incrementally, instead of insisting that your story is always smart and true. life is this opportunity for benevolent change to arise from the present moment and this is what we can be grateful about or accepting of.

 

[Haim]

Suicide is not even an ethical or moral issue. AFAIK morality and ethics deal with how we treat others.


@Haim

I don't see how life can be a gift. Gifts require a giver and a receiver. Prior to one's existence they aren't a receiver so there can be no gift giving.

It is like the parse gifted children,you were giving life(not by god you just have them),a mind boggling thing,to be able to think,act.

As I said immature thinking,so what if there is sadness,it is part of it,you hear that claim from over exaggerating teenagers,that only saw a friction of their lives.

 

[QuickTwist]

@nanook, I don't believe in choice.

@Haim, Life is pointless, lets be honest here.

 

[Haim]

@nanook, I don't believe in choice.

@Haim, Life is pointless, lets be honest here.

pointless is just a feeling,it does not have to have logical sense,you can have the opposite feeling and not be "false".

 

[QuickTwist]

Life does not have any logical sense either.. that's my point.

 

[nanook]

"choice" is limited to waking up from or letting go off ideas/stories that don't work for you. something greater will appear in it's place. intelligence is a creative problem solver, but can not be creative, when we hold on to what we already have come to believe in.


life doesn't need a point, it doesn't need a story, to be the only thing that has and gives value, that calibrates all other values. if you don't allow the plain suchness of being alive to be the calibrator of the value of your stories, then you insist on suffering. (value of a story meaning: should it be discarded as silly illusion or can it coexist peacefully with life)

when people say, that they have found the purpose of their life, they usually mean, that they have come up with a story that facilitates life in peaceful manner, because it is well synchronized with their substantial abilities and opportunities and is therefore not a story of lacking something or of requiring impossible changes to be made.

 

[Tannhauser]

what if it saves 1.00000000000000001 lives?

Like a human + a mosquito? I'd say it is not worth it.

 

[QuickTwist]

So everyone has a story and we should all view it that way. IDK, I never thought of my life as a story. I think the idea that my life has a story is kinda funny. Its a pretty lame story if it is one. Here's how it goes: QT was a kid who threw tantrums as a child, often saying things like that he hated himself. As he got older he found no one who would connect with him, at least in his eyes. He thought he had found love with a girl, only to discover she only thought of him as a fling. This put an enormous amount of stress on him and he had a mental breakdown because of it about a year and a half later and was diagnosed with a severe mental illness. Most of the people he considered friends at the time ended up ditching him, some of which claimed that they had a strong faith in God. QT then became isolated and didn't care for interaction with people much, mostly spending his time talking to people online. He had a lot of vigor in his online presents, but there too he never felt a real connection with people. He then found someone who he thought he just might be able to spend the rest of his life with, but she too didn't value him the same way he valued her. He fell into depression and started thinking life was just one disappointment after another. And the story continues.

That's about as interesting as I can make the story.

 

[Black Rose]

vfsc

low feels and high feelings.
brain chemistry, it is all brain chemistry.
you go on because you know the negative emptiness will pass.
the point in life is to make the positive emptiness last.

 

[QuickTwist]

Like a human + a mosquito? I'd say it is not worth it.

Or it could be that it has an effect on one person who decides not to commit suicide and has a very subtle effect on someone else who was known by the person who decided not to commit suicide from causing a death elsewhere.

 

[QuickTwist]

vfsc

low feels and high feelings.
brain chemistry, it is all brain chemistry.
you go on because you know the negative emptiness will pass.
the point in life is to make the positive emptiness last.

I self medicate with caffeine in large quantities to nullify the negative emptiness. (its a good thing I don't know how to find drugs)

 

[Black Rose]

i think nanook meant by having a story is that it is the motivation for people to keep living. i see many memes where teens finish an anime series just to realize "What do I do with my life now?". their whole life was invested in the characters in the show.

I also wish I could find a girl too but that might happen latter.
I had a break down because I did not know what i wanted to do after high school.
Being online is fun, being alone is not. I am not alone online.
I think positive emptiness is a good thing to feel when you have nothing to do.

 

[QuickTwist]

i think nanook meant by having a story is that it is the motivation for people to keep living. i see many memes where teens finish an anime series just to realize "What do I do with my life now?". their whole life was invested in the characters in the show.

I also wish I could find a girl too but that might happen latter.
I had a break down because I did not know what i wanted to do after high school.
Being online is fun, being alone is not. I am not alone online.
I think positive emptiness is a good thing to feel when you have nothing to do.

Yes, but the difference is I'm not a teenager and thinking about your life in a way that it is a story is very childish (and a bit egocentric as well).

Back to the OP...

So does suicide correlate to ethics or not? I was thinking it did, but I may be wrong about that.

Is life a gift that is given to you by your parents who do not know who you are until you are born?

I mean, murder is unethical... what's different about suicide? Heck we can even go the abortion rout.

 

[Tannhauser]

I think by "story" nanook means a narrative to base your life on -- not an actual chronological story of your life.

 

[QuickTwist]

I think by "story" nanook means a narrative to base your life on -- not an actual chronological story of your life.

You mean like having goals to work towards and stuff? That makes sense, but I don't really have/make goals and when I do, I don't usually follow through with them because they are not important to me. Even when I was a kid I didn't really want to be anything, I just wondered what I would be. I've been wondering who I will be for a very long time in my life.

 

[Black Rose]

I think by "story" nanook means a narrative to base your life on -- not an actual chronological story of your life.

I did not explain my example well.

It would be "I watch anime - it is what I do - it is my life - it is who I am".

A better word might be identity.

I am a farmer or I am a lawyer or I am a baseball player.

 

[nanook]

a man who just wants to get off is a expression of nature procreating itself. we owe it all to nature. to agree with life, we have to be naturalists, not in a reductionistic sense (reducing life to it's exterior appearance of bodies or atoms), but in the sense of being empirical about phenomenal reality.

a man's ideas about wanting a child, during the act, are just ideas. they are not always a strong causal force, they don't always have a high order in the clockwork. not because they are interior, everything that is, is interior and exterior at once, but because verbal thoughts are somewhat shallow in comparison to the deeper intelligence that directs the totality of behavior and thus the act of getting off and procreating.

so we don't owe as much to verbal thoughts, but either way, they may have been long forgotten, while his genes stay around, even though genes are alive and develop as well.


the story of a fox is, that he procreates. a story does not have to be verbalized.

https://www.facebook.com/quentin.lenel/videos/10206225825583102/

the more we verbalize, the more our story is at danger of being removed from human nature and drifting of into silly fantasies.

a mild touch of fantasy ("If it had not been for me, the world would have been so much worse off") doesn't always ruin a story that still wraps itself well around the empirical facts of life ("I lived a simple life, I always tried my best").

if someone's story of life is just a chronological story, that is just fine, but the fantasy still comes into play where the person feels a grudge about how his story is not any more fantastic.

however typically a chronological story is also loaded with judgements about why it came to be that way, which implies unspoken fantasies about how it should have been all different.

a plain story of purpose is: i am the one who was born to be really good at being a carpenter.

a fantastic story is: i am the best carpenter in town and without me, people would have to suffer the most ugly furniture. i am always afraid the competition wants to burn down my business.

both stories deliver the same sense of purpose. the first story is descriptive of what is. the second story is adding some fantastic ideas about what could be and is thereby adding suffering in the form of nagging doubt about the accuracy of the fantasy part. because what if it's not true? if you think you have to be the best carpenter, for your carpeting to be a worthwhile cause, then you secretly feel that your life has no true purpose, because you are probably not really as good as you like to think. the paranoia about them wanting to burn down your business is a projection of the feeling that your story is not acceptable.

 

[Pto]

Life is a painful experience more than a joyous one. Honestly, how many people do you think are actually happy in this world?

It may just be me growing up in a nice secluded area, but the majority of people I know who love their lives, and are for the most part, happy. People I know have had terrible lives but it seems like they all have some redeeming factor that makes it all worth it for them.
But of course, you probably wouldn't reach the same conclusion growing up in a less-privileged area.
Regarding how ethical it is, while it is not the smart thing to do, I think it's completely ethical (Let me prelude this with with saying that I in no way condone suicide). You can't live your life for other people so if your only reason to live is to make others happy, and that alone isn't enough, then suicide seems logical... However this is completely theoretical because even if it does't seem like it, there are always so many more reasons to love your life and keep living it. When you're in pain your mind is not the best judge of what should and shouldn't be done. So instead of looking for happiness, you settle for an escape. The thing is, once you push past the pain, you can see more clearly and see that there are things that make you happy, that do make life worth living.

 

[QuickTwist]

I did not explain my example well.

It would be "I watch anime - it is what I do - it is my life - it is who I am".

A better word might be identity.

I am a farmer or I am a lawyer or I am a baseball player.

Spoiler

a man who just wants to get off is a expression of nature procreating itself. we owe it all to nature. to agree with life, we have to be naturalists, not in a reductionistic sense (reducing life to it's exterior appearance of bodies or atoms), but in the sense of being empirical about phenomenal reality.

a man's ideas about wanting a child, while getting off, are just ideas. they are not always a strong causal force, they don't always have a high order in the clockwork. not because they are interior, everything that is, is interior and exterior at once, but because verbal thoughts are somewhat shallow in comparison to the deeper intelligence that directs the totality of behavior and thus the act of getting off and procreating.

so we don't owe as much to verbal thoughts, but either way, they may have been long forgotten, while his genes stay around, even though genes are alive and develop as well.


the story of a fox is, that he procreates. a story does not have to be verbalized.

https://www.facebook.com/quentin.lenel/videos/10206225825583102/

the more we verbalize, the more our story is at danger of being removed from human nature and drifting of into silly fantasies.

a mild touch of fantasy ("If it had not been for me, the world would have been so much worse off") doesn't always ruin a story that still wraps itself well around the empirical facts of life ("I lived a simple life, I always tried my best").

if someone's story of life is just a chronological story, that is just fine, but the fantasy still comes into play where the person feels a grudge about how his story is not any more fantastic.

however typically a chronological story is also loaded with judgements about why it came to be that way, which implies unspoken fantasies about how it should have been all different.

a plain story of purpose is: i am the one who was born to be really good at being a carpenter.

a fantastic story is: i am the best carpenter in town and without me, people would have to suffer the most ugly furniture. i am afraid the competition wants to burn down my business.

both stories deliver the same sense of purpose. the first story is descriptive of what is. the second story is adding some fantastic ideas about what could be and is thereby adding suffering in the form of nagging doubt about the accuracy of the fantasy part. because what if it's not true? if you think you have to be the best carpenter, for your carpeting to be a worthwhile cause, then you secretly feel that your life has no true purpose, because you are probably not really as good as you like to think.

I have no idea what my identity is. Is this of concern for me? Should it be? Why should I identify myself as anything? I would guess that the answer is that action is what is important. What if I don't know how to quantify my actions? What if my actions do not merit a description?

@nanook, it should not matter how many or how few words you use to describe the story of one's life. The fact that there are any words at all is enough to say that you put value on words to describe. Is that your point? That words create purpose? there is much vanity in that sentiment. What is the difference from using words or not? it is the same as existence in anything. Simply because something exists is no means for purpose and existence in and of itself can be also lack of purpose. You are also jettisoning the op and making this conversation further and further from the main point, which is about whether suicide has any unethical or illethical premises.

 

[Yellow]

Suicide may hurt others, as does any death, but so can lingering. Especially if your continuance places a significant burden on one or more other people. That is, if that burden has become a tiresome obligation, rather than a "labor of love" (I think time turns the latter into the former).

I think the manner of the suicide matters too. Obviously, if you hang yourself in your ex-girlfriend's front yard wearing a sign that says "you did this to me", that's not very cool. If you wrap your car around a telephone pole, it may well be reported as an accident, and will give your loved ones some kind of comfort and closure.

I'd like to mention though, that while I am not one to condemn suicide, I think there are circumstances in which it should be discouraged. I think it should be a calculated decision. I think the person needs to fully understand that the desire to not live this life anymore does not equate to a desire to be dead.

I would think that suicide is an ethical solution for the terminally ill, those who become severely crippled, those enduring unbearable guilt or shame, anyone who is enslaved or otherwise unable to escape brutality, those who are facing a very long prison sentence, or other significant long-term/severe impairments.

Disappointment, as mentioned by others, is transient and rarely justifies something so extreme.

In the case of mental illness, the chemicals causing the sadness/suicidal ideation can be corrected, and should be corrected before suicide is reconsidered. Not all mental illness is so straightforward, but it is still often the illness poisoning your mind, blinding you to viable alternatives and artificially increasing your feelings of hopelessness.

 

[nanook]

The fact that there are any words at all is enough to say that you put value on words to describe. Is that your point?

no this is not my point at all. in how many words do i have to say that words should attempt to wrap themselves neatly around the empirical nature of things? we can't exist without language. it's an organ of our brain, like the heart is an organ of the body. either we tell bad stories about resenting all stories and are caught in stupid mental cycles or we just look at what life is like and describe it in the most humble and straight forward manner and be done with it.

>What if I don't know how to quantify my actions?

it seems that people get clarity about what action is the clearest expression of their nature + opportunity when they access a certain state of consciousness, at least temporarily, which makes them forget about their neurotic ideas for a second. i have tried many spiritual drugs but have not yet attained clarity about how i fit into life and i can't say i've let go off my neurotic attachments during those states of consciousness either. there was one state, wherein i had a clarity about the character of my pure self, but the vision was entirely removed from worldly practicabilities, it was just about character, like the enneagram.

Simply because something exists is no means for purpose and existence in and of itself can be also lack of purpose

you don't acknowledge the argument about how existence/empirical facts needs to be the calibrator of what is purposefully aligned with it, because other ideas of purpose are not grounded in reality and as fantastical as they may sound are just fantasies and therefore not a true purpose or in any way related to truth. the same is true about ethics. ethics is just story telling. all stories are your own and your ethics are your own stories. therefore, how should you tell stories? should you make up fantastic shit about how everyone is to be accused of a million failures to do better? no, because empirical reality has no place for alternative 'what if' realities. should you make up nihilistic stories about how you actually have no stories at all, or about how actions have no ethical feeling to them? no, because denying life by not describing it does not actually make any of it's qualities go away. so you should tell your stories by looking at what is. all of it. and by skipping what is not.

 

[QuickTwist]

It may just be me growing up in a nice secluded area, but the majority of people I know who love their lives, and are for the most part, happy. People I know have had terrible lives but it seems like they all have some redeeming factor that makes it all worth it for them.
But of course, you probably wouldn't reach the same conclusion growing up in a less-privileged area.
Regarding how ethical it is, while it is not the smart thing to do, I think it's completely ethical (Let me prelude this with with saying that I in no way condone suicide). You can't live your life for other people so if your only reason to live is to make others happy, and that alone isn't enough, then suicide seems logical... However this is completely theoretical because even if it does't seem like it, there are always so many more reasons to love your life and keep living it. When you're in pain your mind is not the best judge of what should and shouldn't be done. So instead of looking for happiness, you settle for an escape. The thing is, once you push past the pain, you can see more clearly and see that there are things that make you happy, that do make life worth living.

What if there are more cons to life than pros? What if you are only brought up to have downs?

 

[nanook]

downs exist only in fantasy land, in relation to your demands, which are also fantasies. so downs don't actually exist. you have a healthy body and live in a peacefully country. in truth everything about your life, but your fucked up stories of life, is positive. if you are trapped in a broken body and are in pain, you may have to let go.

look, in a nutshell your problem is this. you have motivations but don't act on them, because you feel that you are not allowed to. so your motivations express themselves only through nasty hateful stories about how nothing in life is the way you want it to be. as long as you have motivations, that can express themselves like this (or differently), you are obviously not actually motivated to let go of life and die. what you have to do is find out, why you feel that you are not allowed to act on your motivations. you probably avoid certain possible repercussions.

but pretending that you are motivated to kill yourself (when in reality you just want your actions to be different) and asking about why you don't even feel permission or self-empowerment to kill yourself is perhaps a rather odd place to start inquiring into the origin of your tabus. but perhaps it not all bad. but most likely you simply don't feel permission to suicide, because you have intrinsic motivation to live.

 

[QuickTwist]

Suicide may hurt others, as does any death, but so can lingering. Especially if your continuance places a significant burden on one or more other people. That is, if that burden has become a tiresome obligation, rather than a "labor of love" (I think time turns the latter into the former).

What's the difference between and where do you draw that line tho?

I think the manner of the suicide matters too. Obviously, if you hang yourself in your ex-girlfriend's front yard wearing a sign that says "you did this to me", that's not very cool. If you wrap your car around a telephone pole, it may well be reported as an accident, and will give your loved ones some kind of comfort and closure.

I agree.

I'd like to mention though, that while I am not one to condemn suicide, I think there are circumstances in which it should be discouraged. I think it should be a calculated decision. I think the person needs to fully understand that the desire to not live this life anymore does not equate to a desire to be dead.

What is the difference? How do you say to one person "you don't want to live, you are free to go" and to another you say "You don't know what you're doing".

I would think that suicide is an ethical solution for the terminally ill, those who become severely crippled, those enduring unbearable guilt or shame, anyone who is enslaved or otherwise unable to escape brutality, those who are facing a very long prison sentence, or other significant long-term/severe impairments.

It is still upon the individual to decide if they would like to end their life correct?

Disappointment, as mentioned by others, is transient and rarely justifies something so extreme.

And if your reality is that there is always a downswing that progressively gets worse and worse? What if the upswing is not enough to justify the downswing?

In the case of mental illness, the chemicals causing the sadness/suicidal ideation can be corrected, and should be corrected before suicide is reconsidered. Not all mental illness is so straightforward, but it is still often the illness poisoning your mind, blinding you to viable alternatives and artificially increasing your feelings of hopelessness.

I can see a mental illness being cause for a labor of love turning into a baggage for a care takes. If the mental patient is not in a position to see they are a burden, who does it depend on to see their fate?

 

[QuickTwist]

downs exist only in fantasy land, in relation to your demands, which are also fantasies. so downs don't actually exist. you have a healthy body and live in a peacefully country. in truth everything about your life, but your fucked up stories of life, is positive. if you are trapped in a broken body and are in pain, you may have to let go.

I'd argue it has more to do with expectations.

look, in a nutshell your problem is this. you have motivations but don't act on them, because you feel that you are not allowed to. so your motivations express themselves only through nasty hateful stories about how nothing in life is the way you want it to be. as long as you have motivations, that can express themselves like this (or differently), you are obviously not actually motivated to let go of life and die. what you have to do is find out, why you feel that you are not allowed to act on your motivations. you probably avoid certain possible repercussions.

I would not say nothing in life is the way I want it to be, that would be foolish. I have food at my disposal, I have shelter and a nice comfy warm bed and I even have a very nice PC. I just think all of that is pointless. It is the mindset that I am adopted that happiness is for those who know it when they are born and that is really the only factor. Poverty, rich, circumstances really have no bearing on whether someone is happy or not. It is not even up to the individual to make their own happiness. It is the condition that you were born and genetics that you inherited that determines happiness.

but pretending that you are motivated to kill yourself (when in reality you just want your actions to be different) and asking about why you don't even feel permission or self-empowerment to kill yourself is perhaps a rather odd place to start inquiring into the origin of your tabus. but perhaps it not all bad. but most likely you simply don't feel permission to suicide, because you have intrinsic motivation to live.

Where did I say I was motivated to kill myself? I'm not. I have no idea what my motivations even are.

 

[nanook]

if our mind is fully focused on a single goal, such as getting this one girl or even getting any girl, we are lost in ego story telling mode and are removed from the present moment.

without this one story about needing a woman, we would resonate with opportunities of the moment through many different motivations and life could be rich in many ways.

so two factors ruin it all.

the strong focus on a single goal.

and any conscious or unconscious tabus that make us discard many other opportunities that arise on the way.

these two factors support each other.

the more tabus you have, the more you become focused on the one thing that seems appropriate.

for me, having an okcupid profile is okay, but approaching women is tabu (because i expect that women hate me), so my only option that serves "the one goal" is to constantly check my okcupid profile, which is clearly nuts, since nobody ever visits it.

and the more we are focused on one goal, the more likely we will judge other possibilities as unworthy.

enjoying your warm bed is only "pointless" to you, because you think there should be a girl in there with you.

we set priorities such as: "i will never get a girl, if i watch movies all of the time. i must not allow myself to be entertained, i must always feel the raw pain of lacking love so as to be motivated to fight for my goal." you just have to hate your warm bed.

but what good can actually come from these negative torturous motivations?

certainly not happiness. and girls have been said to stay away from this vibe as well.

some physical goals can be attained through this ego strategy.

genes are just the exterior side of what is inside. we don't know exactly what interiors correlated with genes. but blaming it on genes or on the brain on the exterior side is like blaming it on the past or on habits in the interior side.

obviously ego is a habit that makes us miserable. and some people have a more miserable ego than other people. this doesn't mean our maturing intelligence can't become aware of how ineffective the ego is in many areas of life and thereby lessen it's utilisation.

the only way to fuck yourself for good is to take anti-depressants that dull you so much, that you can't develop your awareness any further.


i also doubt that caffeine is helping much, because in my experience it drives you totally into the goal oriented doer mindest, where you can emerge yourself in one strategy for hours without ever noticing the flowers on the wayside. (although compared to caffeine withdrawals, it seems to brighten the colors of stuff. but not in comparison to being clean)

 

[Yellow]

What's the difference between and where do you draw that line tho? [...] It is still upon the individual to decide if they would like to end their life correct?

I don't know if the line is clear enough to point out. I don't think this is a black-and-white issue. It's the finality of the act that makes "the line" exist in the first place. You can't exactly take it back (though, unless you believe in souls and afterlives and stuff, it's not like you'll have a chance to regret your decision). We are linear creatures, and so we have no way of knowing what the future will hold. Your future could hold a million joys worth living for. It might hold marital bliss and a dozen fat babies. Or it might hold an ever-decreasing quality of life.

What I do know, is that I don't have the right to tell someone else how much they should have to suffer, in order to spare me from feeling their loss. It is a choice that people should be free to make. I think that it's an injustice to your loved one to begrudge the decision (though, again, the manner may be another matter).

As to the personal nature of this thread, I don't know much about your life. I don't know if this is an occasional recurring thought, or if it has grown on you over time. I don't know if this is idle conjecture, or if it is serious. So it's easy for me to discuss with you in a detached sort of way. On the other hand, despite the fact that our acquaintance is a distant one, I'd feel impacted by the news of your loss. But, that doesn't change my opinion that it is ultimately up to you to decide.

Spoiler

My mother started discussing her suicidal ideation with me when I was "pre-teen". She talked about why she wanted to die and why she always stopped herself. She talked about the guilt she felt at wanting to die, and about the suffering she didn't want to face. She was sometimes detached in the conversation and sometimes intentionally hurtful (or even encouraging me to kill myself on the rare occasion I made the mistake of trying to talk about my problems). This peaked after a few of my friends killed themselves in succession when I was 14. I think I was just old enough to not accept others' opinions of suicide, and still young enough to not know how to process it. So I do understand the loss, and the stress people go through when confronted with suicide. It's just that I see it as equivalent to an accident or a heart attack. Sometimes it's preventable, but the cause of death doesn't make you miss the person any less.

 

[Jennywocky]

I think the manner of the suicide matters too. Obviously, if you hang yourself in your ex-girlfriend's front yard wearing a sign that says "you did this to me", that's not very cool.

What if she always hated you, spent years tormenting you and destroying your self-esteem, screwed the high-school football team in front of you to humiliate you and your parents, had your favorite cat put to sleep, got you fired from your job, planted drugs on you to toss you in jail for twenty years, slipped drugs in your coffee so that you became incontinent, posted your inadequate penis on the internet to embarrass you, and laughed in the face of your pain? And after seeing you hanging there, she just shuts the blinds and goes back to screwing your dad after breaking up your parents' marriage?

There is always context. Half-serious here.

More seriously, I agree with the gist of your responses. You seem to cover the bases pretty well.

My experience with my dad was that he didn't want to live anymore since his early 30's, but instead of ending his life or having the guts to decide to live, he just drank himself to death for the next 40 years or so. Didn't contribute money to the family, didn't invest emotionally, didn't engage, spent much of his time in a stupor. Suicide isn't even always physical. I'm not sure which decisions are worse, each contributes ongoing pain to who is left since lives don't exist in vacuums. Still, it's up to the individual as to whether they will live or die; we have to find our own reasons and basis on which to live.

 

[QuickTwist]

if our mind is fully focused on a single goal, such as getting this one girl or even getting any girl, we are lost in ego story telling mode and are removed from the present moment.

without this one story about needing a woman, we would resonate with opportunities of the moment through many different motivations and life could be rich in many ways.

so two factors ruin it all.

the strong focus on a single goal.

and any conscious or unconscious tabus that make us discard many other opportunities that arise on the way.

these two factors support each other.

the more tabus you have, the more you become focused on the one thing that seems appropriate.

for me, having an okcupid profile is okay, but approaching women is tabu (because i expect that women hate me), so my only option that serves "the one goal" is to constantly check my okcupid profile, which is clearly nuts, since nobody ever visits it.

and the more we are focused on one goal, the more likely we will judge other possibilities as unworthy.

K, so you're saying single mindedness is inherently bad. I'm not sure I agree, but I see where you're coming from.

enjoying your warm bed is only "pointless" to you, because you think there should be a girl in there with you.

I hope this is a hypothetical, because this is not exactly what I am "bummed out" about. I am not desperate for a mate, tho I admit it would be nice.

we set priorities such as: "i will never get a girl, if i watch movies all of the time. i must not allow myself to be entertained, i must always feel the raw pain of lacking love so as to be motivated to fight for my goal." you just have to hate your warm bed.

Again this is not just about a girl. That is maybe part of it, but the problem is much vaster than that.

but what good can actually come from these negative torturous motivations?

certainly not happiness. and girls have been said to stay away from this vibe as well.

some physical goals can be attained through this ego strategy.

I don't follow.

genes are just the exterior side of what is inside. we don't know exactly what interiors correlated with genes. but blaming it on genes or on the brain on the exterior side is like blaming it on the past or on habits in the interior side.

I don't know what you mean by interior side. Is this a spiritual thing or something?

obviously ego is a habit that makes us miserable. and some people have a more miserable ego than other people. this doesn't mean our maturing intelligence can't become aware of how ineffective the ego is in many areas of life and thereby lessen it's utilisation.

I don't know what you mean by ego. Like ego my lego or something?

the only way to fuck yourself for good is to take anti-depressants that dull you so much, that you can't develop your awareness any further.

I am taking antidepressants. I don't think they are helping honestly.

i also doubt that caffeine is helping much, because in my experience it drives you totally into the goal oriented doer mindest, where you can emerge yourself in one strategy for hours without ever noticing the flowers on the wayside. (although compared to caffeine withdrawals, it seems to brighten the colors of stuff. but not in comparison to being clean)

I take caffeine because I feel miserable without it. Like I feel like I want to die. I am pretty sensitive to caffeine and it seems to help not feeling horrible.

 

[nanook]

re: jenny

yes, context is relevant, because the separate self is a complete illusion. i used to feel like this in regards to the society of neurotypical people. i mean i still feel it as a potential. "you did this to me". yes, they co-created my self hate, at the very least they gave it form. my self hate is just the avoidance of experiencing their rejection again and again. should i go to the marked place, gut myself and write with my own blood: you violent insensitive ignorant pricks did this to me? or should i just hate myself slightly less, give up the naive desire to become an accepted and loved member of this violent and ignorant society, learn to enjoy the simple life in isolation, in my warm bed, enjoy not being bothered by ignorant violent people? if i had to work for them in order to survive, i might still end up being suicidal... slavery might be the #1 reason for suicide? the number of farmers who drank pesticides ....

 

[QuickTwist]

I don't know if the line is clear enough to point out. I don't think this is a black-and-white issue. It's the finality of the act that makes "the line" exist in the first place. You can't exactly take it back (though, unless you believe in souls and afterlives and stuff, it's not like you'll have a chance to regret your decision). We are linear creatures, and so we have no way of knowing what the future will hold. Your future could hold a million joys worth living for. It might hold marital bliss and a dozen fat babies. Or it might hold an ever-decreasing quality of life.

What I do know, is that I don't have the right to tell someone else how much they should have to suffer, in order to spare me from feeling their loss. It is a choice that people should be free to make. I think that it's an injustice to your loved one to begrudge the decision (though, again, the manner may be another matter).

As to the personal nature of this thread, I don't know much about your life. I don't know if this is an occasional recurring thought, or if it has grown on you over time. I don't know if this is idle conjecture, or if it is serious. So it's easy for me to discuss with you in a detached sort of way. On the other hand, despite the fact that our acquaintance is a distant one, I'd feel impacted by the news of your loss. But, that doesn't change my opinion that it is ultimately up to you to decide.

Spoiler

My mother started discussing her suicidal ideation with me when I was "pre-teen". She talked about why she wanted to die and why she always stopped herself. She talked about the guilt she felt at wanting to die, and about the suffering she didn't want to face. She was sometimes detached in the conversation and sometimes intentionally hurtful (or even encouraging me to kill myself on the rare occasion I made the mistake of trying to talk about my problems). This peaked after a few of my friends killed themselves in succession when I was 14. I think I was just old enough to not accept others' opinions of suicide, and still young enough to not know how to process it. So I do understand the loss, and the stress people go through when confronted with suicide. It's just that I see it as equivalent to an accident or a heart attack. Sometimes it's preventable, but the cause of death doesn't make you miss the person any less.

I have known 2 people who have committed suicide in my life and one person who died by other means who was also one of my peers.

The first was someone I knew little. I would likely have been friends with this person if it wasn't for my completely jaded outlook on things since I was transferred to this new school and didn't know how to nor did I car how to make new friends. I can't really say I was sad about it or anything - I was going through my own shit at the time and was pretty introspective about everything. He was on my baseball team as a kid not having to do with the school or anything ofc. Can't say it phased me much.

The second suicide was by someone who I saw everyday. He was on my high school wrestling team. I wrestled with him almost everyday since he was close to the same weight as me. He committed suicide sometime after high school, but I don't really remember when. This didn't really phase me either since I didn't really hang out with him outside of school and because I didn't really integrat with anyone really in high school. His best friend, who I also wrestled with just as frequently for the same reasons is in prison for raping his little sister while on a cocaine binge.

The third death was from someone I knew from a job I was at. He was a crotch rocket rider and broke his neck on an on or off ramp from the highway. we conversated frequently at work.

I never even cried because of any of these deaths. IDK why though.

What if she always hated you, spent years tormenting you and destroying your self-esteem, screwed the high-school football team in front of you to humiliate you and your parents, had your favorite cat put to sleep, got you fired from your job, planted drugs on you to toss you in jail for twenty years, slipped drugs in your coffee so that you became incontinent, posted your inadequate penis on the internet to embarrass you, and laughed in the face of your pain? And after seeing you hanging there, she just shuts the blinds and goes back to screwing your dad after breaking up your parents' marriage?

There is always context. Half-serious here.

That would be horrible and I would totally kill myself if that happened to me.

More seriously, I agree with the gist of your responses. You seem to cover the bases pretty well.

My experience with my dad was that he didn't want to live anymore since his early 30's, but instead of ending his life or having the guts to decide to live, he just drank himself to death for the next 40 years or so. Didn't contribute money to the family, didn't invest emotionally, didn't engage, spent much of his time in a stupor. Suicide isn't even always physical. I'm not sure which decisions are worse, each contributes ongoing pain to who is left since lives don't exist in vacuums. Still, it's up to the individual as to whether they will live or die; we have to find our own reasons and basis on which to live.

It is because I have seen what suicide does to families that I do not commit suicide.

 

[kora]

I can imagine a thought experiment whereby suicide is ethical in the highest form : self sacrifice to save the lives of other. But perhaps this is not what you meant by suicide.

 

[Haim]

Life does not have any logical sense either.. that's my point.

This is not your logic telling you this is your feeling telling you,life worth is something that decided by emotions,logic is irrelevant to that you can not say loving ice cream make logical sense or not,loving ice cream is a feeling,it can only be true for you and only you therefore it is not logic.it seem like that you logically concluded that life has no purpose,but it was you emotion,purpose is emotion not logic.

You probably saw only a fraction of your life,thinking not so significant thing are significant,life change there may be a better time,or the current time isn't that bad.

 

[emmabobary]

Why are you asking these questions?
This is the kind of thing that reveals a ot of the author :v

Personally I think it´s a pointless quesiton.
Whatever the consecuences of such an act, the only one who should care about them is the author.

I agree life is primarily pointless, and laugh at every attempt of some people to "let us see" what the truly joy of life is about and how and where we can find it.
I do laugh because one way or another I also find joy in other totally random & pointless events.
After all, who cares about the reasons one ohould or shouldn´t kill oneself. -Did you know humans are the only species capable of commiting suicide?-. If there is no valid reason to live happily either.

I wonder if is there something we can tell you to make you change your mind about a valid reason for one to kill oneself.
I wonder if you were wondering about that when making the question.

What do you think is a vallid reason to commit suicide?

 

[QuickTwist]

I don't know what a valid reason to kill oneself would be. I guess feeling terrible all the time would be up for nomination... Like if you were unable to laugh and cry or something. I know both release endorphins and help depression.

 

[emmabobary]

Stupor is a way to die, as Jenny said above.
It´s not the same the desire of being dead than experiencing a form of death.

I come up with some people that are not able to cry and laugh either, at least genuinely: psychopaths.

I guess a valid reason to kill oneself is always personal.

Or not :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide

 

[QuickTwist]

I actually laughed at that :P

 

[emmabobary]

But just in general, I think there´s a satisfaction in the act of commiting suicide. People who commit it find pleasure or at least relief from the pain of existing.
I mean pleasure by the idea: There´s a huge sense of guilt in common among these persons. it seems to the outsider that there´s some kind of force calling them, as if the death were entangling them in a horrible dream.
Outsiders see suicide as a painfull, horrible act.
Suicidals maybe see it as a relief.

 

[QuickTwist]

This is not your logic telling you this is your feeling telling you,life worth is something that decided by emotions,logic is irrelevant to that you can not say loving ice cream make logical sense or not,loving ice cream is a feeling,it can only be true for you and only you therefore it is not logic.it seem like that you logically concluded that life has no purpose,but it was you emotion,purpose is emotion not logic.

You probably saw only a fraction of your life,thinking not so significant thing are significant,life change there may be a better time,or the current time isn't that bad.

K, go ahead. guess how old you think I am. I bet you're off by about 10 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fz2srx0w8Y

 

[Attreyu]

Most of our views on life are vestigial religious dogma.

Life belongs to the mind attached to it. Ultimately it is your right to maintain it or to stop it.
Anyone putting emotional pressure by claiming selfishness is a veiled admission of their own selfishness (putting the preservation of their own emotions or dogma above someone else's mental or physical well being)

Arguably, rationally, and axiomatically, something (the concept of existing) is preferable to nothing, but ultimately the freedom of existence should guarantee a living-being the right to also make logical mistakes, if it so chooses, which could cost its life.

I vehemently disagree with the notion that we should preserve life at all costs. In practice (and in history) we should, and have mostly, been preserving quality of life instead of life itself. Humans have always killed for resources and discomfort avoidance. The entire principle of the USA's existence was their ideological discomfort to British way of doing things. Instead of enduring discomfort or changing their philosophy or religion they chose potential danger and death for themselves and their children in hope of perceived freedom. Freedom is always about ideological comfort and humanity has always chose to kill over freedom. All the wars are essentially someone choosing not to be mentally or physically uncomfortable.

Suicide is often the ultimate sacrifice for a person's inability to secure quality of life (or freedom) when found to a situation that is equivalent to a checkmate.

(Trying to keep alive anything with a pulse no matter how sick or dysfunctional is a modern medical-ethics malfunction)