My point was the people who are thinking about killing themselves are often experiencing severe depression and therefore aren’t thinking very well. In fact, their thoughts may be too paralysed to think about anything else. Severe depression is a major psychological/neurological disorder that can completely change a someone’s personality and essentially shutdown their normal brain function.

And please, dump your whole superiority thing while you’re at it — people who have been through this may be a lot stronger than you ever will be.

I’m sorry if people you know have killed themselves, but writing them off as cowards show that perhaps you never really understood what they were going through. No body expects you to unless you have experienced it yourself, but it is expected of you to understand when you can’t relate to something.

That “for no reason other than I had a toothache” kind of reenforces my position. “Hmm, even though medical science is TOTALLY capable of diagnosing and treating this minor oral discomfort, I think I’ll launch myself off a bridge to my death, rather than contribute anything further/at all to humanity, or make any attempt at personal advancement. And off I GOOOOOoooooo—!”

Ntr hs gd wy f gttng rd f ths wh dn’t wnt t b hr.

Your life (and your body) is your own, do with it as thou wilt.

But that’s not a suicide. It’s a homicide with suicide as collateral damage. We really should stop saying suicide bomber (or whatever) and start saying homicide bomber. It would be a more accurate description since there’s usually more murder than suicide involved.

“And yet you keep coming back, when it’s obviously not your cup of tea?”

You’re right, of course. Only those willing and able to nod agreeably to a particular post should comment.

When will I learn?

Since when to people need credentials to express opinion?

Yes, there are no samurai today, just as there are no knights and many other types of people. How long was their time? How long has your times been? Value systems are not laws of nature.

(Two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers, screamers… Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.)

#28 on grounds of needless mean-spirit. We are all human here and we all deserve the benefit of the doubt – and compassion as well. Did you consider the emotional impact of your statement on the loved ones of someone recently dead by their own hand? I find you lacking in style here.

#34 People need to be reasonably responsible for what they say. Sometimes a spirited,well thought out, nuanced and researched response (with foot notes),sometimes an apology, sometimes a strategic retreat,sometimes even silence. Opinion and comment is free. No one has told Rossifumi to shut up. I have asked him to put up, though.

Rossi, the way you say what is and isn’t supposed to happen–were you one of the ones got that limited edition rule book to life when you were born? Diff’rent strokes, my friend. There’s a reason they call death the undiscovered country [from which no traveller returns etc]. At some point, we all have to face up to death. Sucks, yeah, but no way around it. It’s the biggest deal for any individual, and I don’t think anyone ever understands it, but if one thing can be called natural, it’s death, in whatever form it takes.

He had this romantic idea of what an outlaw was, and it was a very convincing and sexy argument, and a lot of people bought into it. His irreverence was as much a performance as it was genuine–If you take an honest look at what drove many of his stories, a lot of it was just self-generated drama.

He wrote with wit, and had a talent for language, but I don’t know that I admire the way he risked his health and life to feed his need for drama. Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas is a fun read, but if there is any truth to what he wrote, the book describes a desperate and sad attempt to feed this need for a sense of excitement and danger in his life. Almost killing yourself to experience something “edgy” isn’t any more profound than getting the right neurotransmitters to fire in just the right way to make you feel whatever it is you’re chasing. It’s no more profound than a rat in a skinner box.

Romanticizing this behavior is an exercise in banality. He was a clever and progressive writer, but his self-destructive lifestyle didn’t make him a better writer. It didn’t make him a lesser human being either, but I do believe that he wasn’t making choices in the way that people who don’t suffer from mania make choices. I don’t know that he preferred to live that way so much as he just didn’t have any other choice.

Nice phraseology, Takuan. I’m too laid back for these discussions, so I’m out.

Just try not to take things too seriously while I’m gone, OK? And I know I can trust you all not to start a flame war.

I believe that Thompson’s mania preceded his drug use. I don’t believe that his suicide or his other impulsive behavior was specifically motivated by drug use.

If you’ve read his “mental narrative” than I would think that you would be able to see the manic energy that drives it. Mania can be very lucid–it intensifies experience, and I don’t believe it made him any less smart or deep.

An impulsive act driven by a preexisting condition that compels you to do impulsive things doesn’t make you any less smart or deep, but it doesn’t give you much time to deliberate while their happening. Sometimes acting in the moment could be a great adventure for Thompson–other times it resulted in poor decisions that he couldn’t take back, like shooting a vending machine with a rifle because it didn’t give him his quarter back. That particular decision resulted in jail time and compulsory military service. His last impulsive decision resulted in the end of his life, and is very consistent with his history.

Mental illness, without treatment, is outside of the control of the person who suffers from it, no matter how brilliant they are. It’s even less in your control when you and the people around you can’t even identify that you have a mental illness. For most of the people who knew him, that was just Hunter.

nfrtntly h wll frvr rmn cwrd nd lsr fr pttng shtgn t hs hd.

nly cwrds tk th sy wy t…hw d y g thrgh ll ths crzy dvntrs n ll ths crzy drgs, bt dn’t hv th blls t s lf thrgh.

WLL wtch ths mv, bt h s tr lsr.

fl h wld sy th sm thng bt hmslf.

You’ve nailed it. Hunter’s mania, resulting in a difficult personality and a difficult life. I knew him briefly, but it was risky to be around him because he lived a dangerous life.

Rossifumi,

Suicide scares you, doesn’t it? It should, but it’s not for the cowardly. Sixty-three years ago hundreds of young Japanese men climbed aboard flying bombs, and in defense of their country flew them into an assembled American naval fleet, killing thousands of the enemy and sinking thirty-five of their ships. Are men who turn themselves into bombs cowards? Was this an act of mass cowardice?
I doubt that you know a thing about either courage or cowardice, son, only what you’ve read. Be here now!

I understand the way of the Samurai. Their value of suicide was high, and this value did not exist in Knights and other people.

And do not think I am not comprehending what you are saying, I am simply opposing it as a failed set of values. Any system where the aim is death for lack of a better aim is not a system.

SCOTTFREE,

Nobody gave me a book on what’s supposed to happen, I simply observe nature, and nature has yet to show me suicide as a part of it’s system. Suicide is a man-made action.

It is a documentary…save your money and wait for it to come out on DVD. Seeing it in a theater does not enhance your viewing experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxJtzzOx534

I am living this life, and so are you [follow my logic here] and we will be faced with many trials and tribulation [still with me right?] and if we conquer these trials and tests we become a better person when we are at death’s door step.

Now if we skip and ignore these trials and tests, then we have nothing to show for ourselves when we are entering death.

This view point assumes that you believe in God, if you do not, then please ignore my comments.

And again, if you look at what I have said, I reiterate that I loved the man’s literary works [or social gossip...whatever] I simply detest the fact he took the easy way out.

It is actually HST that failed to “put up” after all of his long-winded narratives about this life and society in general.

I went through these same arguments when Kurt Cobain pulled a Hemingway. I loved the man’s work, but despised his actions.

Fortunately thats your opinion, and forever is only as long and meaningful as it is in your own head, and when those neurons stop firing, nothing you thought will matter anymore.

so stick it out if you want, but it doesn’t matter one iota if you do.

a guy who jumped off the Golden Gate bridge left a suicide note that said “for no other reason than i had a toothache.”

I didn’t choose when i got to enter this world, but if the ending drags on for too long i’ll choose how and why I leave it.