I feel this post (as always long overdue) is one that I am most compelled to write being recently exposed to death in the most traumatic way. I will not however blunder into emotional cathartic outpourings. The reason for writing this on a boarder spectrum expands my reasoning on personal values and the various complex thoughts that strain my judgement regarding the sense of suicide.
Firstly one could consider just a few of the fundamental personal values adopted by western civilisation, what we do, say, and who we are as responsible, respectful human beings. In all of our superior understanding you would think that people could mediate the sacredness of the value we place on ourselves as equal to the value we place on our fellow humans. Does society adopt too easily a mocking tone and biased attitude towards suicide? I believe that not a day goes by when a dropped euphemism "god I'm loosing the will to live" or "this is terrible, somebody shoot me". Lets not go too deeply into morals, as even if not acted upon it is understood what is good and bad regarding human behaviour. Instead I will swiftly turn towards choice in ending ones individual existence.
The subject of elected suicide has recently been drawn back into the news once again and until this highly controversial area of choosing death over life is tackled our understanding about personal preference and how we can start to value this too will never materialise. It would seem very cold to debate this in a black and white fashion thus I feel it most appropriate to place a solid (if somewhat old worldly) quote from the great educational and religious philosopher of the twentieth century M.V.C Jeffreys; 'History shows that people have found satisfaction and strength in various answers to the problems of existence.' If this is so then why would Jeffreys claim on the same page that; 'Man is at odds with his environment and with himself.' We can now surely define that there must be two differing modes of conscience when suicide becomes a persons choice to remove themselves from life and end their existence, but does one have more reason behind it than the other. Can taking ones life, whether in full health yet mentally traumatised or likewise suffering in the throngs of physical pain and discomfort, equally lead to relief. There are professors who have recently claimed that when any decision to elect suicide is taken that the days leading up to the fact are spent in a haze of happiness - almost, can one suggest euphoric relief, that the path is now clear to end one chapter and maybe enter into another. Again Jeffreys delivers his thoughts by proposing; 'man's salvation lies in losing himself in something greater than himself.' Can one be led into another life where the emphasis is not on ones own values placed at the front of ones existence but on a new community living in a utopia of selflessness. I would like to think that with the ones that are left behind a greater understanding links those of us together that have lost someone through suicide or any version of death.
Unfortunately at times this is not the case which leads me to my final thoughts of monopolising suffering through the loss of life. I would of dearly liked to discuss the more contemporary age that bequeaths this type of competitiveness with C S Lewis now I have read The Problem of Pain as my problems stem from percentages on who suffers the most from grief. As we are all different in the way our lives end similarly we are all different in how we choose to conduct ourselves when crippled with the pain of loss. We see people as possessions and when they are taken away it leaves a huge void. What is chosen to fill that void is what fascinates me and sadly one can be faced with the worst of characters who believe that there grief is a tidal wave that must sweep everyone along with them and dare you too experience death then watch out! The lime light must be kept focused squarely on them as they have the monopoly on death and suffering. Supporting one another is vital to pull through these dreadful harrowing times, these individuals merely make everyone suffer too but unfortunately the friends and relatives believe they are just sharing the grief. Some of us do not make a fuss the void remains an excavation that in its midst's swirls an air that can only follow its tail. Suicide is always a continuing cyclic motion of questions and thought but no endings; whether it is not a new beginning but just a different way to live it can only be more of a lived life and less just a mere existence if all societies and communities learn to share with one another. Personal values are falling away as more opinion and less listening occurs. Real communication seems altered so that understanding means to only understand your own aims and reasons to why you do and say and are who you are. Everyone else can cease to exist, unless you are 2D, flat, faceless with over ten likes - people are score cards. Approaching the subject of suicide can't come any sooner and must not get any later in the education diary. Nobody has the right to monopolise death or any of the topics surrounding it, we are free as a civilised race to face it, discuss it and equally empathise with each other when we have experienced it.
