Suicide

Why does it seem like we keep confusing ourselves about death? On the one hand, we would usually say things like "death is a part of life," or "death is but the next great adventure," just to look at the bright side. Yet when there is someone among us who takes his own life, it's such a touchy subject. There are no bright sides. We speak in hushed tones.

Admittedly, I will never be able to talk authoritatively about those who have decided that their life is not worth living. I will never understand what has contributed to that decision, not while I continue to find so much purpose to keep living -- not until I experience for myself the same things that lead a person to cause his own death.

Yet I would suppose it fair enough to say that these people have lost their own need, whatever that may be, to keep living in this world. I suppose there is ultimately nothing evil about that, insofar as a person's death is just as good as any other way for a person to have fulfilled a personal mission. And if death is as "just another part of life" as we say it is, what makes our physical existence any better than a purposive death?

In the end, we can do nothing for those who have gone ahead, and those who have decided in their hearts to go ahead. There is only the question of where they leave us, in terms of what we are now doing with our lives, and our own personal missions. True, I would hate to have nothing to live for and yet keep on existing. But my even greater fear is to have one day denied that there is anything to DIE for in this world -- this, for me, is the biggest act of suicide.