A lot of people say that Suicide is cowardly. I disagree. The one thing that is a constant source of apprehension and fear in humanity, is death. No one knows what happens when you die. Is there an after life? A heaven or a hell? Are we reborn? Or do we simply disappear?
Many of us are preoccupied with our own death and the preparations there of. We write Wills years in advance, we buy life insurance, we go to church and pray in hopes that through redemption we will obtain a better place in the afterlife that may or may not exist. We as humans fear death. It is something that we can not explore, we can not collect any data on or conduct any experiments on with any type of accuracy. It will forever remain a mystery.
Those who choose Suicide are not cowardly, they have chosen to dive head first into the source of the greatest uncertainty of death. In my mind, the choice to die is one of the most brave choices one can make. While I agree that Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, it is not a cowards choice. It is often a choice of desperation and despair but it is not a choice made out of fear. To call the act of Suicide a coward discredits and ignores the human relationship with death.
Thoughts?
11 comments
I agree… How people can say suicide is cowardly when they’ve got no idea what they’re on about is beyond me. They only say it because they’ve never been in that situation.
I agree. I actually think in many cases that it’s a noble, admirable act. There’s nothing cowardly about it. It takes a whole lot of guts to off yourself, no matter the circumstances. Calling it “the cowards way out” is bullshit. If you absolutely hate every minute here, and have exhausted all your attempts to feel better, the cowardly thing to do is to live out a shitty miserable existence and wait to grow old, decay, and die anyway.
That’s the thing. We’re all going to die, so if someone wants to cut to the chase, they have the right to do it. I understand how horrible it must be for the people they leave behind but still, if they really want to, it’s ultimately their right and their choice. Then again, I’ve never known someone who did it, so maybe I don’t have the right to judge, and maybe my view would change if it were to affect me personally. But I doubt it. I’m sure I’d be devastated, but I don’t think I would ever call it cowardly.
I have had a few of my friends commit suicide and have thought about it myself many times. It’s terrible, losing someone like that… but it’s worse having them around but unhappy. Watching a person you care about suffer is one of the worst things in the world (I’m pretty sure we can all agree on that).
I used to resent the friends who left me but now that I have realized that their choice was never mine to make, I can admire the courage it took to even make a decision. Because in the end they made a choice that we (myself included) are not often strong enough to make.
Someday I hope (selfishly) that I will be strong enough to make the choice that they made.
Sometimes suicide is a permanent solution to permanent problems. Some of us have issues that never improve. Thus suicide becomes our solution.
That is also true. I was merely relaying some of the things I’d heard about suicide from other people. Playing devil’s advocate if you will.
Life is temporary, so you can semantically argue that “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem…”
But those “temporary” problems actually might not resolve themselves, or even be able to be solved, until the life they plague, ends.
Whether or not the problems are “temporary” is not the issue. All problems are temporary… but since life is also temporary, “it” is about whether we are willing to continue a life that cannot be what we want, temporarily, until death arrives on its own.
If we know that those “temporary” problems are going to persist for the duration of our temporary lives, then “why not just get it over with?”
Sometimes, “knowing others ‘care'” makes us feel a little less terrible… /temporarily/… but eventually, “just because other people care” (but do nothing to alter your suffering), simply isn’t enough. You can go on “caring” and doing nothing for me, while i’m dead and no longer suffering.
But death is painful, and it’s not easy for some, to take those last steps, voluntarily thrusting themselves into an unknown, from which we all know we will never return.
So yes. Letting go of all you’ve ever known, and facing whatever unknown “comes after,” surely requires some measure of courage.
On the flip side: life is temporary. How hard is it to throw away something you already know you’ll ultimately lose, anyway? Probably much harder if you actually value it, and would prefer to keep it as long as you can… if only there wasn’t so much perpetual suffering.
Brave or cowardly, the fake debate is not one at all. The question of whether suicide, a act of conviction in which the outcome is binary, (ie dead or not dead) already assumes some form of system of values. In other words, its a trick.
The truth is, as a culture (thinking more the USA here) we are cowards because we fear death so much so that we will violate any and all of our principles for the sake of merely surviving. We have no values, certainly not any that demand integrity or thoughtfulness. To those who commit suicide I wish only peace.
I salute you. Peace is all I wish for everyone.
To those about to rock ^ HE ^ salutes you. 🙂
Your thoughts are very nice to hear and about a week ago I would have agreed with you completely……but after reading fairy tail I realized that suicide is just the fast way to short a problem like you said…..if you live and you try hard , I mean really hard then maybe you can Chang the word with your though or at least start generation on a better path
Well I guess I am wrong if your just depressed and don’t have a reason to say around because you might think humanity is pointless and that the world should just burn to the ground. Then you should live life as you want if you want t be a hero about it just let the few people(mother, father ect) see you die……maybe after you are far a way from them make your death seem like an accident or some
But then again if you want to see the world burn …..make the world burn kill do what ever it’s your life