September 1, 2011
from Dead Souls
This is what many readers will say, and they will reproach the author for the absurdities, or will call the poor officials fools, because a man is generous enough with the word ‘fool’ and is prepared to dish it out to his neighbour twenty times a day. It’s enough for you to have one stupid side to your character out of nine other good ones for you to be regarded as a fool. It’s easy for readers to pass judgment as, from their peaceful nook on high, from which the whole horizon lies open before them, they gaze upon everything that is going on below, where only objects close by are visible to a person living there. And recorded in the universal chronicle of mankind are many entire centuries which, it would seem, man has deleted and annulled as unnecessary.
More musing on Gogol in Sussex.
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Wonderful photos and musings, Derek. I always love your travel posts.
I have to say that I disagree with your thoughts on suicide. I can tell you absolutely that if I ever kill myself, it will be the most selfish act I commit. It is that knowledge that keeps most suicidal people (the ones who love and are loved) alive.
Derek, your posts on five-cents never cease to work me over. I’m all like WTF in your presentation and connections. Me. Trying to fathom. I’m always fascinated. Thank you. Abstract. Artful. You give me fodder to chew on. I hope that comes across in the best possible way. I hope you know I think you rock the world.
Thanks Rick, that’s encouraging & keeps me writing them.
I’m sure most feel how you do Cindy, which is why it had to be said. Suicide is an interesting topic to me, not because i personally consider it, but being one that doesn’t feel too much connection to family (or humans in general on this planet) i think of it in a more abstract way. It’s a phenomena pretty much unique to humans, and one that humans have for the most part stigmatized. I just think it’s funny people call it a selfish act, when saying it is selfish is just as selfish if not more (you are thinking more about yourself more than you are the person who hated life to the extent they wanted to check out early). If you think strictly in terms of language, you can’t deny it isn’t “selfless” … you are eliminating the self from the world. Yes, of course, you should consider others, but shouldn’t you consider yourself first and foremost, because without you, the others, nothing, would exist? (Again, in the absence of religion, i always turn to the philosophy of quantum physics to frame everything). Virginia Woolf’s (for those who haven’t read it) suicide note crushes me… yes, i feel sad for her husband but it pains me that she obviously felt so bad, that it probably kept her alive longer even though she was obviously in misery. Sure, it’s a good thing for those left behind, sticking it out, you get to be with them one day longer, or in the case of Woolf, read one more poem, but is it for them? Shouldn’t they be able to check out early with dignity and honor, and not have their last thoughts consumed by shame, the thought that the loved ones they are left behind think they are selfish? It’s a complicated issue (as Camus says, the one truly serious philosophical problem) obviously. Also one that i think people think about more than we think, but never talk about out of shame or fear, and we’d probably be better off and there’d be less suicide if we talked about it more and it wasn’t such a big deal & people respected the decision of those that did choose this route.
I really want this conversation, Derek. Thank you.
For me, suicide is personal. I have fought the urge since I was 13 years old and, unless nature plays a trick on me, I expect to die by suicide. I agree with your views on people’s right to do it, especially in the face of lingering illness. I believe most suicides to be completely forgivable acts of need. The problem for me in this context is that many people don’t fully understand the nature of chronic depression and the strength required to get through what seems to be an endless stream of black days. Death is easy in that context, I promise you. There have been times when my only means of self comfort has been thoughts of knives and guns. If I were to give in to that comfort, it would transfer my pain to those whose love for me is among their own reasons for living. And in that sense, it is a purely selfish act. Love is the one thing that can transcend the urge to suicide.
I apologize for being so personal here, but I think this is an important discussion.
Thank you, Cindy.
The Joy Division documentary and also the movie Control (about Ian Curtis) is what really got me to thinking about it (not to mention thinking about Virginia Woolf and about Gogol willfully starving himself to death), i recommend seeing Control if you haven’t. It’s a tragedy, really, and of course i would’ve liked to see Ian Curtis live at least long enough to tour America so i could’ve seen them. One foot out the door right now, but yes, would like to see more discussion on this.
I want very much to join this discussion, but I have to ponder. Ponder something Deron and I have talked about with respect to the extent we can be forthright on clusterflock. I have no problem speaking my own heart and mind; it’s when, as now, I must make reference to others and invoke their experience that I pause.
I want to speak in specific terms of specific instances that have led me to my current (ever-shifting) view on suicide, but to do so in guarded terms feels disingenuous, and to do so directly feels cruel and exploitative.
Also. Derek, I read Deborah Curtis’s Touching from a Distance when it was first published, and after reading, I had to set it aside as it skeered so close to the bone.
And. Also. I read Dead Souls when I was twenty or so, and it had a major, formative impact. Time to reread.
I think that’s what it comes down to: each of us has the fundamental right to end our lives. We also have the obligation to understand the result of that decision on the lives of those who remain.
It is an important discussion, Cindy, and to the extent I am with Derek in his take on taking one’s own life, I am thinking (in part) of those whose misery is so encompassing that it engulfs the lives of others and pulls them down into the quicksand. One individual’s terror multiplied. And no apparent hope of release.
So, while I would in general agree with Deron’s articulation of the obligation to understand the result of the suicide decision on the lives of those who remain, I believe that those who of us who have chosen to be survivors must remain open to setting free those who cannot bear the pain.
Sheila, I agree. I think the greatest love often requires us to let someone go. Of course, it isn’t always other healthy adults we are leaving behind. A child can’t make that choice, for instance. It’s always complicated and sad.
It’s important that I be clear that I would never judge anyone who ends his own life. Never.
“I was vexed at the reflection that if I were going to make an
end of myself that night, nothing in life ought to have
mattered to me.”
Dostoyevsky, “Dream of a Ridiculous Man”
I believe it is possible to love others more than one’s self. Is that healthy? Perhaps not, but if it isn’t I have no idea of how one might define such health. The fact that I might long to die as quickly as possible doesn’t mean that I therefore long for everybody to join me. Knowing I am loved, I would set aside my choice (if able to do so). If I believed my presence burdened others in a way that outweighed potential pain caused, I would go.
A sad feature of suicide is that it can come to appear in one’s mind as an inviting doorway. A person can even begin to rely on the comfort that doorway represents. No bad thing in one’s life, then, is ever larger than those few steps required to reach that passageway. It’s seductive, and it generates a kind of empty courage–an ability to go blank in the face of danger. But sometimes that ability to be fearless generates, ironically, a pleasure in life that makes one want to hold onto it for a while. Hence my reference to Dostoyevsky’s story.
It’s a terrifying thought to think of not having suicide as an option. And it pains me to think that there are actually laws or moral codes against suicide. That surely doesn’t aid in one’s decision. If it was me weighing my options I’d think having this stigma weighing over my decision would only exacerbate the issue, make ‘living’ feel claustrophobic. Yes, it’s a deeply personal issue & you can’t make generalizations that apply to everyone, we all have different personal experiences with it (mine more on the side of family members leaving me prematurely, so perhaps i lean towards forgiving). It’s a gray area. We are all committing suicide to some extent. When you get behind the wheel of a car, when you take a drink, drugs, when you rock-climb, etc. And that’s okay. I spend a lot of energy doing things to ‘stay healthy,’ or to prolong life; running, eating well, etc. and i’m not sure that’s healthier (to the mind) or more productive than thinking about suicide. Sometimes that feels vain & unhealthy to me, like i’m George Costanza pushing the kids out of the way to get out of a burning building. The vain pretense of immortality is selfish to the poor mortals, the dead souls, that have left us. And not to be cliche, but as writers, artists, more substance comes from facing death, rather than to naively think you can avoid it. For Gogol’s troubles, we are left with such words: “For contemporary judgment does not recognize that equally wondrous are the glasses that observe the sun and those that look at the movement of inconspicuous insect; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse, and that a whole abyss separates it from the antics of the street-fair clown! This contemporary judgment does not recognize; and will turn it all into a reproach and abuse of the unrecognized writer; with no sharing, no response, no sympathy, like a familyless wayfarer, he will be left alone in the middle of the road. Grim is his path, and bitterly he will feel his solitude.”
Thank you for this, Derek. I’m really glad we’re having this discussion. My views of suicide as a necessary option are exactly in line with those you and others here have expressed. Legal and religious edicts against suicide anger and disgust me.
So here’s the thing. I came as close as I have ever come to killing myself one day this summer. My effort was thwarted by a stranger who was simply doing his job. If I had been successful that day, I expect that the clusterflock discussion of suicide would be somewhat different than what we’re seeing here. Some flockers would think, well, Cindy wanted this and got it and that’s as it should be. Some would be perplexed by it. I’m vain enough to think that most flockers would be saddened by it, possibly even wondering what they could have done to prevent it. But there would be 3 or 4 who would be completely devastated by it, whose lives would be profoundly changed for the worse. I don’t want to do that to them, and I don’t want any of them to do that to me. To misquote a line from The Hours, we stay alive for each other. That’s what people who love each other do.
I have more love than I can say.
We stay alive for each other.
This is a good discussion.