No life after death

[Paul the Human]

Aside from the kamikaze jihadists scenario, suicide is most often attributed to depression. I had friends who committed suicide, one guy that I went to school with hung himself because he and his girlfriend split up. He was sad, I can understand that, she wouldn't talk to him, okay, he ended his life, forever, because of it. Does that make sense? That's happened to the best of us. Every guy has at one point or another gotten his heart broken by some self centered bitch. But that typically isn't the end of relationships all together. So this was a temporary problem, permanent solution, I don't understand how that isn't baffling to someone Saerules. I don't understand how life can seem so bleak, so hopeless, that you don't even want to bother trying anymore.

Like I said, the appeal of life is that it is so fragile, so short, and in most cases, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I can't imagine willingly giving that up. And even though i knew people personally who have, I still can't wrap my head around it.

It sounds like you are pretty unlikely to take yourself out. That is a good thing. I share your feelings that life is for living and ending it forever is a complete waste. However...

What if life was handing you nothing but misery and pain? Emotional trauma can be so intense that, if that is the state of life, it does not feel 'worth living'. Combine that with the lack of any reason to think the situation will change for the better. It might change, but you know it will only get worse... and you cannot imagine enduring it. At that point, one might consider ending it all to spare themselves the suffering. I know. I've been there.

I didn't actually attempt suicide, but I was on the brink. My mother saved my life and does not even know it.

[Welsh cake]

I don't exactly find eternity as a human on Earth to be a particularily pleasent concept. That's why I don't care much for the premise of having multiple lives.

Now, if death took me to a place like star wars where the main characters never seem to get killed despite going on new adventures every other month that involve saving the universe... That'd be kewl with me.

That's anything but kewl, you would long for death when you spend an eternity living in the prequels.


If you really have to be trapped in someone's brainchild, pick the Mario video game franchise, at least Shigeru Miyamoto ensures battling Bowser for all eternity is as epic as it is comical there.

[chatpilot]

To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant - Taisen Deshimaru

The above quote pretty much sums it up for me.

[Violet]

Aside from the kamikaze jihadists scenario, suicide is most often attributed to depression. I had friends who committed suicide, one guy that I went to school with hung himself because he and his girlfriend split up. He was sad, I can understand that, she wouldn't talk to him, okay, he ended his life, forever, because of it. Does that make sense? That's happened to the best of us. Every guy has at one point or another gotten his heart broken by some self centered bitch. But that typically isn't the end of relationships all together. So this was a temporary problem, permanent solution, I don't understand how that isn't baffling to someone Saerules. I don't understand how life can seem so bleak, so hopeless, that you don't even want to bother trying anymore.

Some of us gamble everything upon a certain value... and see no reason to live at all should that value escape from us. If my beloved 'broke up with me': my priorities have changed to 'hooking back up with' said individual again. Should said individual die: I have little-no reason to live, and frankly have no reason not to die. To exemplarily in a way you might better understand: Say you are playing a game of Poker, and you bet every chip you have on a royal flush... and one of your opponents has 5 of a kind (assuming you are playing w/jokers being wildcards). Now that you have nothing to gain through playing (assuming that you were playing for the sole purpose of cash)... why continue to do so?

As for how bleak life can look... a number of people are starving, destitute, thirsting, and living in conditions that will surely kill them eventually... and remain alive. That is not to speak of the ones who were in such a situation and opted to not do so. Why try when you realize that it cannot be done?

Like I said, the appeal of life is that it is so fragile, so short, and in most cases, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I can't imagine willingly giving that up. And even though i knew people personally who have, I still can't wrap my head around it.

That is not an appeal of life recognized by many (whence religions positing an afterlife?)... and it is not so fragile as one might think. It is both ridiculously easy and amazingly difficult to kill something... life is so very vulnerable... and yet: fucking resilient. Just consider life as another resource of many, and it becomes easy to see many reasons to give it up (and a number of which that will further your goals by killing oneself... hence why i said 'some things are worth dying for').

[Dotard]

Even with Jokers as wild cards there is still no such thing as 5 of a kind.

[SleepingDemon]

I recently watched the HBO movie You don't know Jack. At the time this really happened with Dr Khevorkian I remember being kind of torn on the issue, but as i've gotten older and having worked in a nursing home for 3 years, I have a better understanding of what human suffering really is. Now, i realize this is cherry picking, but being old with a degenerative disease or something, living in complete physical agony every day and having nothing to look forward to but more pain and idignity, I can understand that, even sympathize that. But a 16 year old kid hanging himself over a girl or whatever, it's completely different.

And Saerules your poker analogy is inaccurate. The great thing about poker is that no matter how badly you get your ass kicked one day, you can come back the next and win it all back. A better analogy would be giving up playing poker altogether forever because you were beaten. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem in most cases, and that is what I don't understand. There are instances where death is a more dignified end, but taking your life because you are depressed? Once you die, you are gone forever, girls will come and go, problems will come and go, unless you are faced with a lifelong problem, suicide seems a bit like overkill

[Paul the Human]

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem in most cases, and that is what I don't understand. There are instances where death is a more dignified end, but taking your life because you are depressed? Once you die, you are gone forever, girls will come and go, problems will come and go, unless you are faced with a lifelong problem, suicide seems a bit like overkill

I completely agree with this. However, you have to be able to see things from the perspective of the one that has chosen suicide in order to understand where it comes from. Those temporary problems may not feel temporary and/or make life simply too painful to bear (in that person's mind).

I'm not saying that the person committing suicide is correct by any means, but they definitely feel as if they are. Emotions are the strongest force imaginable when it comes to directing human actions/reactions. Some will even let those emotions create a make believe scenario where an all powerful creator being awaits them with a loving embrace...

[John_S3V]

One must keep in mind that the reasons for suicide might be impossible to understand from an observer's perspective, because sometimes it has to do with damage or improper functioning of the brain. Low serotonin levels can cause depression as well as fatigue. In some cases, even if some one's life seems perfectly satisfying to the outsider, the person living the life may not even be capable of enjoying it because of chemical imbalances in their brain.
Quite frankly, I think researching the mind and trying to determine how to make it run properly and most efficiently, which will in turn make people happy, is one of the most important endeavors humanity can pursue. Without the ability to feel happiness it's hard to find reason to live. Furthermore, such research could yield results that could increase the happiness of people already happy or mildly happy.

[Caecilian]

One must keep in mind that the reasons for suicide might be impossible to understand from an observer's perspective, because sometimes it has to do with damage or improper functioning of the brain. Low serotonin levels can cause depression as well as fatigue. In some cases, even if some one's life seems perfectly satisfying to the outsider, the person living the life may not even be capable of enjoying it because of chemical imbalances in their brain.
Quite frankly, I think researching the mind and trying to determine how to make it run properly and most efficiently, which will in turn make people happy, is one of the most important endeavors humanity can pursue. Without the ability to feel happiness it's hard to find reason to live. Furthermore, such research could yield results that could increase the happiness of people already happy or mildly happy.

I couldn't agree more.

One of my closest friends killed herself around 12 years ago. Objectively she had everything to live for. She was beautiful, very smart and incredibly articulate. She was a documentary film-maker, and stuff that she made actually got shown on TV (Channel 4 mainly). But then she got clinically depressed, and ended up taking a massive overdose. I still miss her. Dominique Harvie RIP. If only they'd had a pill that could have helped you.

Psychiatry is maybe a century behind the rest of medicine in terms of what it understands and what it can do. Some conditions, such as mania, it can treat pretty effectively. Others, schizophrenia and depression for example, it is much less successful with. New medications are coming out all of the time, and the newer drugs tend to work better with fewer side effects when compared to the old ones. So there is progress.

But there really is a great deal that we don't know about the mind- for sure we don't know more than we know. For example: 'schizophrenia' is so badly understood that there is widespread disagreement over whether its a label for one underlying syndrome or many. Other phenomena, such as 'consciousness', 'intentionality', and 'mind' do not even have a generally accepted definition.

[John_S3V]

One must keep in mind that the reasons for suicide might be impossible to understand from an observer's perspective, because sometimes it has to do with damage or improper functioning of the brain. Low serotonin levels can cause depression as well as fatigue. In some cases, even if some one's life seems perfectly satisfying to the outsider, the person living the life may not even be capable of enjoying it because of chemical imbalances in their brain.
Quite frankly, I think researching the mind and trying to determine how to make it run properly and most efficiently, which will in turn make people happy, is one of the most important endeavors humanity can pursue. Without the ability to feel happiness it's hard to find reason to live. Furthermore, such research could yield results that could increase the happiness of people already happy or mildly happy.

I couldn't agree more.

One of my closest friends killed herself around 12 years ago. Objectively she had everything to live for. She was beautiful, very smart and incredibly articulate. She was a documentary film-maker, and stuff that she made actually got shown on TV (Channel 4 mainly). But then she got clinically depressed, and ended up taking a massive overdose. I still miss her. Dominique Harvie RIP. If only they'd had a pill that could have helped you.

Psychiatry is maybe a century behind the rest of medicine in terms of what it understands and what it can do. Some conditions, such as mania, it can treat pretty effectively. Others, schizophrenia and depression for example, it is much less successful with. New medications are coming out all of the time, and the newer drugs tend to work better with fewer side effects when compared to the old ones. So there is progress.

But there really is a great deal that we don't know about the mind- for sure we don't know more than we know. For example: 'schizophrenia' is so badly understood that there is widespread disagreement over whether its a label for one underlying syndrome or many. Other phenomena, such as 'consciousness', 'intentionality', and 'mind' do not even have a generally accepted definition.

It's baffling to think that we could invest so much effort into our physical health and then more or less over look our mental health. The two go hand in hand. Without one the other decays. I have a cousin who suffers from schizophrenia. It just came out of nowhere and was ruining her life. Thankfully, they did find a medication that could help her out, but she still doesn't feel like herself when she's taking it. There's still so much to know about the human mind. My hat goes off to the neuro-scientists.