September 3, 2011
from the comments
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.
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