A few years ago, when I was in a Current Life class, our teacher grazed over the topic of suicide and depression. She asked those who thought suicide was wrong to stand on one side of the room, and everyone else to stand on the other side. After a quiet moment of shuffling, it was clear that I was the only person on the shunned shore. Of course, they asked me why. I asked them: “If suicide is so wrong, why does it happen so often every day?”
It was the revelation of how humanity is a paradoxically fickle thing. We see small aspects of the things that make us proud of who we are: love, compassion, kindness, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, we are capable of horrific things: war, savagery, fury. It is the darker side that makes us cringe in shame, reflect on how we are, of the things we’ve done, the things we regret.
And for those of us who simply don’t want to be part of this world, we are ridiculed for our obsession with death. We are told that it is a moral sin, that suicide is an unworthy liberation of our lives. That we are cowards to our futures, our souls and our faiths.
We don’t open up. We are convinced that no one can understand the pain, the anger, the crushing weight of loneliness. But in a way, we know that others have felt like this. Some have moved on, while others have perished. It doesn’t matter what their circumstances were, even though we seem convinced that there is no way out. We know that others couldn’t last a day in our shoes.
No, no one told us it would be easy. But no one sure as hell told us it would be this hard.
No, it isn’t fair. We are envious of other people for a multitude of reasons. We wish we had their happiness, their love, their outlook on life. We know that some will smile every single day they live, while others won’t ever go to sleep without shedding a tear.
It is humanity. It is cruel, it is unfair, and sometimes, if you wait for it, could possibly deliver you the best day of your life. So I don’t see why we shun suicide as such a bad thing. If someone were in such brutal pain, do they not deserve a right to end it all? Many of us go through our entire lives searching for a kind of peace. It is a peace that some of us will ever seldom find. Do the suffering not also deserve to find this peace?
Yes, perhaps I am delusional. Perhaps my words are the false echoes of lies we have come to know for ourselves. You are perfectly capable of deciding what is right. Truth is relative.
But you, my friend, you and I both share a common end. Death. We will both perish one day, sucked into the abyss that has claimed so many others. We will wither into dust, remembered as faint memories held dear by those who still care to know our lives and our legacies.
But we cannot live if we do not know how to die. We must be ready to accept that fate, destiny, our time can end it all in less than a heartbeat. It doesn’t matter if you hold responsibilities, or any other position of interest that demands your Earthly presence. Death won’t care. Your name will fade away eventually, even if it is remembered for several centuries. We are not meant to clash with the invincibility of infinity.
So why must we continue to deny those who wish to see the end their right to die?
Because it is human nature. For those who cannot see the light, we know there is one simple fact.
As long as there is light, there will be shadow.
…Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears Weary of utterance, seeing all is said; Soon, racked by hopes and fears, The all-pondering, all-contriving head, Weary with all things, wearies of the years; And our sad spirits turn toward the dead; And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.- “Death, To The Dead For Evermore”, Robert Louis Stevenson
