Your opinion on suicide

[CyberSarkany]

^{If such a Topic has been here before, sry for that.}

"Welcome everyone!

This is your Community member CyberSarkany, and you have the right timing, the discussion is about to start.
You ask why I dare to write this? Since I want to improve my english and discussion skill, I thought I might try it. Feel free to take a chair and discuss with us.

Todays topic is "suicide", but first of all, let me explain why I want to discuss this stuff right now:
I am currently reading a book from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who is a famous german author(I don't know of any of his books are in available in english) at school. The protagonist commits suicide(short summary with mistakes: he loved a person who was already planned to be married).


Ah good, now that everybody took his or her chair, let me start:
What do you think of Suicide in generell?


*a person in the backer row raises his hand*
Host: "Yeah, you please."

Person 1: "There is no justified reason to actual commit suicide!"


H: "Did you ever actually think about reasons?

An example, if you life in a country lead by a cruel dictator and your living circumstances are below everything you may imagine,(e.g. you don't get enough food, you have to work many many hours a day under unhuman circumstances, all you see is suffering and there would be no way to escape), what would you do? Go on suffering?
Or another one: There was a time, when a certain group of people was hunted down because of whatever stupid reason(skincolor, believe, favorit food etc.). If you would be part of this minority, and you know that you WILL be killed by them, seeing like everyone else you know was already killed, knowing that nothing on earth can save you, what would you do? I know these examples my sound trivial, because most people can't even imagine these situations, but at least try to understand it.

Don't think it's easy for a person to make a step towards commiting suicide! "


*a young man, abour 25, wearing a black T-Shirt with "GanstaZ" on it, starts to talk after raising his hand and getting my nod*
Man: "Even if I would accept that there are reasons, it is still wrong to commit suicide, think of all the persons you leave behind and all the saddness and anger you cause! And every least intelligent person know that it's against the mind to kill yourself!."

Host: "Woah, slow down, these are different points you are talking about.

I will first take you last point: You say it's against the mind, right?
Have you ever been amorouse? If yes, you should know this could easiely blind you.
If this person you love is for you more important than anything else, would you say this is against the mind, because you set it(the love to the person) above all else? If this person dies, the most important person of your whole live, you get in a situation where your "mind" may not work anymore, because of the shock you got.
There are many situations where you are blinded, not seeing a solution to a problem which, for you, may be existential.
You don't use your "mind" in such an extrem situation, so why even going on with discussing it?

For you first point: Yes, it does make people around you, the ones who may have loved you, sad and angry, but would you be angry at a person who you don't even know and say "What a fucker, he killed himself!"? Most people I asked would be, but why?"

*A sweet girl in a blue dress in the first row raises shyly her hand*
H: "Yes miss?"
Girl:"Because most people think it's wrong, whether out of religios believe or just because they never thought about such a situation, as already stated."

H: "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, thanks for that *wink*. "Wrong" says we rate something, but can we rate suicide? A lot of people claim a suicide to be a weakness, because the person was not strong enough to go on living, under what ever circumstances it is.
Lets give some examples: Someone can physically just handle a limited amount of for example virusses, some people can handle more, others less. If the virusses are to many, we break down because of an illness for example.
So is it with our psyche: Everyone of us can just handle a limited amount of everything, if it's  Joy, saddness or pain, if the amount of for example saddness becomes to high, pour psyche breaks down, and this leads to suicide.
You can't blame someone who runs 50 meters in 7 secs that he is slower than someone who needs 6 secs, that's why you can't blame anyone for committing suicide just because it's a so called "weakness".
If a person can't handle life anymore because of whatever reason, it's his right to end it, and don't even think it's an easy move. Life is the most valuable thing we have, and noone would give it away for nothing.       




First try, what do you think? I am open for critism.
Hope it was at leats a bit understandable, and feel free to correct me(whether in grammatic or content).   
And I did it in some kind of fake conversation because it was easier for me to imagine, sry for that, and does someone knows where to get a free spellchecker?

Discuss! And please, no religion stuff like "It's sin", not because i don't like it, but because that's a different case(living in heaven/hell etc.) and we know what these flame wars will look like...

btw. the audience is supposed to be the majority of people, the "normal" people how I love to call them, who are always around me, and in most cases simple minded followers
Gotto go playing lego again, have fun!

[Agent 12]

(kind of short man raises his hand in the back gets pointed at and stands up)

JP:  Maybe I'm to optimistic but I always think there's a chance that things are going to get better.  My dad came from a pretty beat up town where 90% of the people will end up doing exactly what their parents are doing.  But he moved away, got an education and now were living a pretty good life.

If someone you love dies, someone else will come
Your race/religion/beliefs are being attacked, your attackers will be stopped.

The only hard one for me to justify is someone who is on their deathbed from an uncurable disease.....but even then I wouldn't condone it.


P.S. the english is looking good, get rid of one of the P's in opinion in the title though.  I can't imagine knowing two languages, besides programming languages....


--jp

[GreenGannon]

I've always thought that there would be an alternate option than suicide that would be more effective. In any case, I think the fundamental flaw in the reasoning of victims is, as stated, that they don't take into account the effect it will have on those around them that care about their well-being. Whether or not they believe it will have an impact, it is inevitable that their suicide will likely cause more of the suffering that they'd hoped it would end.

I guess in short what I'm trying to say is that if people were to understand that, whether it was obvious or not, people do care, then maybe it would be less common.

[V_Translanka]

*Kicks door in and starts blasting away*

My thought's always been, if yer gonna go out, you might as well take as many other fuckers down with ya! Mass Murder/Suicide or nothin...Or wait...maybe a Rape/Mass Murder/Rape/Suicide...Yeah...That sounds more like it...

Now, on a slightly more serious note (not that much of that wasn't serious)...

I've always been of the opinion that most people who, or attempt, suicide probably aren't doing it for a good or "the right" reason. Whatever woes they may have, if they searched long enough they would find this reason, which I hold true to being the sole, redeeming quality, or reason for committing suicide: THEY'RE STUPID.

And, ironically enough or no, I feel the world has it's full of such people and their limited intelligence...Heck, if we as a society aren't weeding these people out, it's kind of nice to know they're doing it themselves.

[Lord J Esq]

*The left-handed geek doth rise to speak*

To me, suicide is a matter of inalienable liberty. If we are going to respect that the individual has the right to choose how to live--and I think we should--then we must also respect the logical corollary that the individual also has the right to choose not to live. There is something deeply fundamental about this most basic expression of liberty: Your life belongs to you. That sort of ownership, in my opinion, is absolute. Thus, whether or not the individual has a good reason to commit suicide, and whether or not this person's death will have an adverse impact on the lives of others, may well lead to valid complaints in certain instances...but they are injustices with which we shall all have to cope, because that is what it means to respect the liberty of the individual.

However, this freedom is only the final page in a much longer story. Before the individual commits suicide, the healthy society has every obligation to discourage such an event. This begins when life begins, and ends only with death itself. A healthy society will nurture the individual and teach a respect for the opportunities of life. Family, teachers, friends, mentors, and public figures--all of us, really--share in this responsibility. A healthy society will place upon the individual neither the burden of tremendous stress nor the burden of insufficient stress upon the individual, as these extremes together are the source of many if not most suicides. And a healthy society, via its laws, its institutions, and its very people, will make every effort to reason with the individual who has become so despondent, distraught, or manic as to be at risk for committing suicide.

In certain instances when the individual's cognitive faculties are so overwhelmed as to be rendered temporarily irrational--usually resulting either from chemical intoxication or from a traumatic event--it is even within society's purview to intervene and outright deny the individual his or her freedom to commit suicide until such time as a rational decision can be made. Such episodes of "temporary insanity" usually pass quickly. In cases when mental incapacitation is permanent, a legal framework must stand in for the absence of an intellect capable of making the suicide choice--and that is a more difficult conversation, best left for another day.

Some suicides are long in coming. Others are conceived and executed almost in the same instant. Some seem to be a shame; others a relief. Some people kill themselves who had everything to live for; others kill themselves who had nothing to live for; others still kill themselves who had everything to die for. Some do not kill themselves at all, but cling to life long beyond their hour...having never had the courage to do what should have been done. Some avert their own suicide at the last moment, and later are thankful they did so. Others avert suicide only to return to it again, and still again. It can and should be troubling to see a promising life snuffed out. But a life without promise...we can and should accept that such a thing would choose its own demise, and be relieved. And there's the rub: Promise, or the "opportunities of life," as I called it, is ultimately a perception of the sentient will. It exists only within the mind. It is the sole property of the individual. Ultimately, I am talking about a reason to exist. The individual must have such a thing for his or her life to have meaning. If no such reason is forthcoming, or, indeed, if a reason not to exist trumps its counterpart, then suicide is a reasonable option.

What a monumental waste, though. Of all the atoms in the universe, how many were lucky enough to form human beings? And of all the human beings who have ever lived, how many were lucky enough to live such a life of riches as we now enjoy? Yet in the age-old human psyche there is enough poison that, when the urgent needs of survival are all met and a mind has time to wander in the garden of thought, death is still a plausible outcome. Truly, our species has a long way yet to go.

I would not commit suicide myself. I won't assume the dizzying responsibility of speaking for my future self, but my past self and I are in full agreement: Suicide has always been pointless and repugnant to me. But that just means I have a pretty good raison d'être. Others don't, and I respect that. I regret it, but I respect it. My life belongs to me; yours to you. Liberty demands that we respect the individual's right to die.

[GrayLensman]

There are some circumstances where suicide is a rational desire: in the face of a debilitating terminal illness, for example.  However, once you are dead, you do not have the option to stop being dead, so suicide should not be treated lightly.  I'd say the use of suicide to escape from present troubles or past trauma is a bad move.

[Burning Zeppelin]

Like Gray said, suicide isn't a black and white issue. Examples:

Terminal Illness: Pain is a horrible thing, no? We all just want it to stop. Suicide is the ultimate stop to pain (suicide is the ultimate stop period). But then you ask yourself, do you REALLY want to go that far, to a point of no return, even when there are methods (albeit extreme and sometimes said to be worse than death) in which to stop pain.

Politics: Remember Vietnam guy? He wished to make a point, to burn it into our memories, to make a scene so giant- to actually kill yourself, blow yourself from existence, feel the unknown, the blackness. Another example are the inevitable suicide bombers, who are as much trying to make a point of great "martydom" as just killing people.

Depression: When you just don't want to live anymore. This I have an absolute "no" stance against (well in my own life I do) because it shows cowardice towards yourself, and depression is mainly caused by yourself, and your interpretation of what just happened. Depression is normally when you have feelings of "I don't care anymore" and "Everday is exactly the same" (kudos to anyone who understands where I got that from). Well why don't you care? Why don't you try and do something, rather than take the absolute, irreversible, unimaginable way out (I didn't say easy because it's not easy)?

All in all, I say suicide sucks. But its mainly the reason why you do it. But then you go into the whole religion buisness...

[CyberSarkany]

hmmm...

I think there are many reasons not to live, because of all the bad things in this world, all pain, saddness, terror, death, slavery, supression etc.. There is no real way we, the small people in the society, can change it, as long as we aren't corrupt and money hungry.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the good of humanity(even after being failed in these believes very, very often) and I still believe, as long as there are reasons to live, even if they are only a small glim in the long, darkend tunnel, you should not consider taking you own live. In the moment You are hurt, in the moment you really want to stop living anymore, you should still consider everything, all the people who love you(even if they don't show it), all the friends you have etc.. In such a drastic moment, you are blinded by your feelings, that's why I, myself, would not consider suicide without really tryng to solve the problems another way...

Suicide may be the last act of freedom in such a world like ours...

And sry for the double-P in opinion

[Exodus]

If you want to commit suicide, it's your loss. However, if somebody comes up to you and says "I'm going to kill myself," they're basically asking you to tell them they have a reason for living, and it's pretty much your job to convince them that it's true.

In addition to what I've stated above, I've had several times in life where I've felt cornered, and that gun was starting to look REALLY friendly. It's at these points that you need to try your best to find good things about your life, rather than delving on the bad.

[CyberSarkany]

It's at these points that you need to try your best to find good things about your life, rather than delving on the bad.

This is true, but you don't always see these good things, even after a long search. The bad things are presented everyday by media and people around you, and even after finding the good stuff, I don't think you should ignore all bad things and not caring about them, because this let our ignorance grow even more, until we, in futur maybe not that far away, won't care about anything except our selves.

[Burning Zeppelin]

But why not try and face the bad off and hope for the best? Good things always come.

[CyberSarkany]

For me, it's more like a dream that everythign will be good...
Maybe I'm just too pesimistic, but I never really noticed something really good happening, like people stopping to kill each other, or people stop killing forests/using coal etc. for energy, but that's point of view.

[V_Translanka]

Pain is a horrible thing, no? We all just want it to stop. Suicide is the ultimate stop to pain (suicide is the ultimate stop period).

Prove it.

It's at these points that you need to try your best to find good things about your life, rather than delving on the bad.

While it's true that it's probably better not to "delve on the bad", it's probably almost as bad to ignore them and focus only on the good. Personally, I think it's best to forget everything and live only in the moment. Id, baby, all the way.

But why not try and face the bad off and hope for the best? Good things always come.

Optimistic nonsense.

[Exodus]

That's ridiculous. If we didn't look towards the future, there would be no civilization to begin with. Living in the moment ends poorly the vast majority of the time.

[V_Translanka]

Eh, that's not exactly what I meant, but I understand...I think of looking towards the future as part of living in the moment.

Live in the moment, exist forever!