Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

October 26, 2003; 4:08 P.M. - Impromptu picnic after a first group of monastics evacuated the monastery because of the fire. We were all packed up and ready to go when the monks decided they didn't want to leave. That's the way it works at a monastery. We eventually did evacuate, but only for a day.

Well, I'm off to the monastery for a week. I highly doubt there will be any opportunity for monastic blogging, so just in case there is any interest *ahem*, here are the rest of the responses to the Craig’s List suicide note.

Response #25, heavily edited for syntax, grammar, formatting, and especially brevity:

Date: 2003-09-25, 3:23PM

Well sir, if nothing else you have provided this day on Rants & Raves with some interesting food for thought. It blows my mind the amount of people who shut-up about their whiney complaints and tried to extend help. It reaffirms my faith in the human race. Thank you for that! I am fascinated that suicide generates more responses than just about any other topic. Maybe down deep beneath all the bitching and moaning and groaning, we aren't that horrible as a people.

Have you noticed that Craig’s List actually makes you more depressed? After spending time in Rants and Raves, I find myself feeling more depressed due to the constant hate, bitterness, and fighting spewing out of everybody. After feeling completely drained by it all, it can leave you feeling like what is the point of even trying anymore. This board can actually be damaging to your emotional well-being. I am saddened and frustrated by the amount of ignorance and hate in the vast majority of people here. This site alone can lead someone “on the verge" to want to kill themselves!!

BUT (BIG BUT) . . . LOOK AT ALL THE GOOD you have generated here today!!!!!! You have accomplished something of great value. By all means stick around, we could use more of your input here! Send us a postcard from Tahiti or somewhere. Time to get out BUT NOT GIVE UP! Already, YOU HAVE HELPED MANY OF US HERE, just today. IMAGINE how much more you can do with your entire life ahead of you. Peace, Bro.

P.S., if you are a fake, thanks anyway. IT HAS been a good day on CL, AT LAST!

This response was considerably longer and really didn't say much more than this. It had more of a sarcastic edge, though. Overall it's positive and sympathetic, but affirms the negativity the suicide feels. I don't know. I just don't get a strong feeling out of this response, maybe I'm jaded after going through all these responses. Maybe it's just his style that isn't doing it for me. Maybe it's the irony and contradiction in how he's telling the suicide to not kill himself because of the positive effect he's had by posting on Craig's List that he was going to kill himself.

Response #26, lightly edited:

Date: 2003-09-25, 4:03PM

Wow. Before the suicide guy on CL RNR, I really never thought about all of the things that might make someone really try to do, well, you know, do that terrible thing that he is going to do.

Uh, are you serious? The suicide in cyberspace is the oldest happening around, because every single one of us has contemplated the world without us in it, and this kind of forum gives you the closest idea to it without actually doing anything. Please let the suicide guy rest in peace now for the next identity quick-change artist who decides to try on their fantastic cyber-role.

This is a jaded response that doesn't believe for a second that the suicide is real, which is fair. Why should we believe anything online is real? That's why I find this response fascinating, it's more a comment on cyberspace and virtual reality, including weblogs. The vast majority of people allowed themselves to take the suicide note as real, others were skeptical but also allowed for the possibility.

This person knows exactly what's really going on and knows it isn't a suicide note. And that's totally fair, no one can prove otherwise. But it could also be that she spends way too much time online and her primary form of human contact is in geek chatrooms and message boards. After all, as her first paragraph states, she has never put any thought into the issue. It makes sense that dealing with it or responding to it is not even in her reality.

Response #27, edited for syntax and grammar and brevity:

Date: 2003-09-25, 4:14PM

I agree with a couple of seemingly opposing "sides" to the argument.

1) For/to me, in principle, suicide is my choice - my body, my life. The idea that it's actually a crime to take one's life is absurd in so many ways.

2) For/to me, being physically disabled and in chronic physical pain (with the attendant psychological pain), and believing in the right to end one's life based on the pain being too much to bear, I can easily transfer this belief over to mental/emotional/spiritual pain.

We all suffer physical pain, yes? Some of us only moments here and there - and way at the other end, some of us all the time. If you believe in "assisted suicide" for physical illness, where do YOU draw the line? How do YOU decide, "This person isn't in ENOUGH pain to be allowed to go, but maybe that person is” or “This physical condition doesn't merit the choice, but that one does." It's a complex issue, but ultimately it comes down to the choice of the person in pain.

Some people experience the "usual/norm", the "human condition" kind of suffering in their minds/hearts/spirits. Some suffer on and off, here and there, to greater or lesser degrees. Some folks, for whatEVER reason(s), suffer a lot, chronically. And this seemingly never-ending, overwhelming, beyond any therapeutic measures physical pain, can seem/be unbearable. I believe that if I am at that threshold, I have the right to step on over.

3) I also concur that suicide is "the ultimate form of liberation". But I, too, in my lifelong struggle with depression, have often veered AWAY from taking my life BECAUSE I felt I had the right/freedom to move on if I wanted to! That belief reassured me that I wasn't trapped, imprisoned by anyone else's controls. That consoled me, relaxed, relieved me. And that's cool.

4) Life is precious. I don't actually want to lose it. Wanting to go (FOR ME) ISN'T because I do not appreciate the gift/blessing of life - it's because I can't bear some kind of pain - not because I don't want to be here, but actually because I can't bear being here with such ACUTE sensitivity to life AND such pain.

I don't have a primal taboo against suicide because I believe that THIS life/planet/timespacecontinuum isn't the ONLY one there is or ever will be! It's all energy changing from one form to another, on and on. I can relax, there will be many other "lives" to live, "I" (my soul/spirit/energy) won't ultimately cease to exist.

But yes, I'd rather stay - AND I'd rather be relatively free of excruciating pain while here! It's a hard balance.

5) I also think of the pain that would be generated by my departure - yes, that too keeps me here at times when I'd rather not be. However, I don't believe the choice of suicide is in and of itself a totally "selfish" thing (selfish in that there is no concern for others) - because I DO believe that we are all connected. No matter how seemingly few people are in my life, how seemingly little effect my presence may have, I realize my absence would create ripples.

And I shudder at the thought of leaving loved ones with the grief, anger, despair, misunderstanding etc. that my departure might cause. I would never want to move on with that legacy left behind me ... ending my pain leading to the perpetuation of others'.

For me, some things in life are simple, but not easy. This topic is neither. And this brings me to an enormous respect for the desire to take one's life. People confronted with suicide, on whatever "sides", deserve a lot more than absolutes, goading, fury, self-righteousness, dismissiveness, condemnation, rejection, other's own ego'ed motivations, from us.

Truth to tell, I didn’t read this whole response through until I had to comment on it because it was just too verbose and convoluted to get through. I think this person is extremely complicated and intelligent, and is therefore very specific about the language he uses, but hasn’t learned to self-edit and be concise, and in the end that just mucks it up. I know because I suffer from that a lot, and I strive to always simplify. So in editing this response, it was my aim to make it readable since I agree with his points. FOR/TO ME, this response is worth reading carefully to take it in.

And the final one I deemed worthy to copy, response #28:

Date: 2003-09-25, 7:04PM

If you've decided to kill yourself, I doubt that a bunch of strangers could change your mind. But I'd like to argue against your statement that you have not made a difference in the world.

Although it is easy to get frustrated with yourself for not being able make any big changes in the world, it is unreasonable to expect to be able to make such changes. It is a VERY rare person that can facilitate such drastic change.

Simply being a good person, setting an example for others, and being around to dilute the evil in the world is enough to make your life worthwhile. The difference it makes is subtle, but definite.

So if you're gonna kill yourself out of exasperation, fine. But if you're gonna kill yourself out of guilt, then keep in mind that you'd be doing society a disservice by lowering the good/evil ratio.

Terrific insight at the beginning of this response that a bunch of strangers couldn't change his mind once his decision was made. It's true, but I'm also glad that so many people responded like they might change his mind.

But I'm not sure where this response got the idea that the suicide wanted to effect big changes in the world. He mentioned big things that he thought was wrong with the world, but didn't source his reasons in not being able to effect change in the big picture. What he said he couldn't change was his own life, and really he is the only person who can gauge that.

To the extent that he addressed the big picture, he was talking to us. He wasn't inviting a response to him. He made his decision, but we still have our decision to make this world a better place by what we do, by what we're considerate of, and what we complain about or act to change. But by "giving up" himself, he's not likely to convince anybody.

I like the point in this response about the value of just being a "good" person in this world. I appreciate that. But ultimately I don’t think that would stop a suicide. We are all selfish, and this response is arguing that selflessness is a reason to live. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that were so?

I appreciate the little differences I make in daily life, smiling to strangers, being respectful and courteous. It really might make a difference in a small way to people, especially in our modern society so full of cynicism, cruelty, and indifference. But again, it’s hardly enough to counter a decision to leave.

I wish I had someone to talk to. But I could only talk to someone I loved. And if I loved someone, I wouldn't need to talk. How typical.

I've been challenging myself lately on the suicide thing. Maybe it's a climate thing and this base desire to live will stop in a few weeks. In any case, I've succeeded in thoroughly . . . not confusing myself . . . just equivocating at a time when there is no motivation to equivocate.

I tell myself to keep steady, and the most important thing is to be confident and not be confused about my belief. I've always been open to what I believe in, and self-doubt is not a positive part of that process. If I decide against suicide, it has to be positive and affirming, not a result of self-doubt or fear.

When you lay a foundation for a house, you have to build a house. You can't change while it's going up and decide that you want to build a skyscraper or a ship. If you lay the keel, you're going to build a ship. You can't decide later that you want to build a statue without tearing everything down and starting from scratch.

Suicide isn't something that occurs to me in bad times as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's the foundation of the way I live my life. And I've been twisting and turning every possibility that could be built on that foundation without having to tear it all down and start from scratch.

That's why it's so hard when I get to the brink and find myself feeling like living indefinitely, without some sort of end date. It would be like trying to build an airplane out of the foundation of a house. A) It won't fly; B) airplanes don't need a basement.

So this is the point where my imaginary interventionists jump in like Craig's List Suicide Note Respondents and start spewing bunk about being strong and being able to turn my life around, change, and live, it's possible if I try. And this is when I give my blanket response to all those respondents: You just don't get it.

They're empty words in the end because they don't get it. Because they dismiss years and years, months and months, days and days, hours and hours of a psyche fragile built on a foundation that assumes its own dissolution, all with a quick stroke of uninformed idealism. Yet I'm still here. Granted, with no friends, no family, no job, no career, no talent, no prospects, but I'm here.

Done:
It's been 8 months since I quit my job and proceeded to float through 6 months of perceived nothingness.

That's OK, I'm OK with nothingness, it's nothing to beat myself up over. It's been 2 months since I hit that wall and realized I wasn't ready yet, but refused to go back to any status quo that is the normativity of our mundane living lives. I cut way back on drinking, I stopped cutting altogether, I packed away my guitars and basses, and I've been reading fairly diligently and sitting at least twice a day with occassional break days since then.

I don't know what's next, but I need to get moving, stop procrastinating, commit. Yea, this is flawed, but I needed a drink this afternoon for the first time in who knows when in order to commit to a week in a monastery, starting this Friday.

I don't think this stint in a monastery is going to accomplish anything. I just want the imprint of the experience on my psyche. If I really thought monastic life is for me in this lifetime, I would have signed up for the required two weeks as preliminary. If things go incredibly well, I'll ask if I can spend another week there beyond what I signed up for.

If I go for just one week, I'll come back on October 31st and leave for New Jersey to return the car between November 5th and November 8th, after elections. I'll take my time across the country and expect to get to New Jersey mid-month-ish. Then maybe I'll fly back here before Thanksgiving.

Once I'm back here, then final decisions will need to be made. But there are too many things between now and then to project on them now. Hopefully I'll just be closer to the goal.

twilight:
Autumn nights, autumn nights, even in the Bay Area they're so beautiful they make you want to die cry. I have to get out of the Bay Area. It isn't the general cold here that is killing me, as I'm craving that feeling of November and December, the melancholy, deep, quiet cold air, when nature has died and strange memories of your entire life come to haunt and are more vivid and alive than any other time of year.

Oh, the things I remember. It reminds me that I'm here and now. I'm here. And I'm now. The whole city is far away from me now. I don't know a soul here. I know that if I met a soul here, I wouldn't like them. I need community to live. I've rejected every community I've had. That is to say I've rejected what I need to live. At least food and water keeps me metabolizing.

The windows aren't double-paned, apartments aren't really insulated, I don't need my long coat, I may or may not need my thick sweatshirt. There won't be any anticipation of snow, there will be no snow to smother and mute the cityscape, no snow crunching beneath my feet, no snowtracks to let you know someone's been there. We'll get rain. Miserable rain. Weeks and weeks of rain. No snow.

One more week until Daylight Savings Time ends and my system goes into shock, shut down, gets buried for the winter, and my spine turns into a knife's edge. Another year of "I can't, I can't, I can't", and yet somehow April comes around and . . . I did. Maybe it'll be different this time.

Craig’s list suicide note, response #24, lightly edited:

Date: 2003-09-25, 3:12PM

I honestly don't think that this is real. I think it is just something to get all of you logged on tomorrow, waiting to see how it was done, waiting to see IF it was done. But that is just me. And if it is real, hey, that is his thing, more power to him. He is one of the weak (well-spoken weak, at least), and we all know that the world needs less of that. I personally believe that a person that would sit here and advertise the fact that he is going to kill himself, and let people have little flashbacks of their personal experiences with loved ones, is a fucking nut job and should rid the world of his/her presence. Good luck to you, man. Sleep well 6 feet under, or may your ashes float in the wind for a long time. Take it sleazy.

This response is so dispassionate and cynical that it’s a wonder why he even bothered to post a response. Posting on Craig’s List is pretty easy, but it isn’t exactly instant messaging, you have to jump through some hoops.

He states that he doesn’t think it’s a real suicide, and at first he doesn't seem to have a very strong opinion either way, but then he not only proceeds to respond as if it were real, but all he has to offer is misanthropy and disdain. It’s ironic because this is the kind of person that makes a suicide feel good about leaving. You might even hope that it would be this kind of person who rids the world of his/her presence. But that wouldn’t be right, would it?

And now a little Poetry Corner from response #23 to the Craig’s List suicide note:

Date: 2003-09-25, 3:05PM

To You:

People are always judging,
when they don't understand.
I live in a society,
where one has to grow-up,
and be a man.
I sit in this room,
not knowing what to do.
I am so confused,
and no one has a clue.
No one is here to hold me,
and tell me it will be alright.
Maybe I should just kill myself,
and pray to God to hold me tight.
But then I thought twice,
about taking my life.
After knowing someone cares,
it doesn't feel right.
How can I just throw my life away,
in just one night?
There is so much more to life,
then to not put up a fight.
I need to learn to love myself,
then everything will be alright.
As long as I see,
what life has to offer me.
There is nothing else to do,
but to live life and be free!

I’m no poet. I know it. So no comment. Except maybe *bleah*. Simplistic drivel. It's like when you're miserable or in a crappy mood, or caught stuck in the rain, and someone is going off reciting Christian or Hallmark inspirational sayings. And you just want to hit them. Or puke. Or puke on them. And then hit them.

Suicide note response #22, edited for syntax:

Date: 2003-09-25, 2:56PM

Seriously, what was your point of posting here on Craigslist? You claim that it is not a cry for help . . . sure! I was feeling a bit sad and sympathizing, but with your kind of attitude, I think the world is better off without you. Good luck! Just know that you're bound for the fires of hell. While the rest of us will continue with our sweet life and look forward to the gates of heaven awaiting us.

ADIOS!

I’m guessing this is a response to the suicide’s follow-up posting (below) because of the "but with your kind of attitude" line. It sounds like the original note made him feel one way, but then he changed after reading the follow-up. I can’t identify the "kind of attitude" in the follow-up that is so offensive. Maybe that he was unmoved by all the responses? What did he expect?

The moralistic, religious swing in mentioning the "fires of hell" and the "gates of heaven" says more about the hypocrisy, smug self-righteousness, and intolerance that religion often provokes than anything else. As if suicide is the cosmic "Go to Jail" card, as if this writer is the paragon of compassion and virtue, as if he personally knows what’s awaiting any of us.

A real compassionate "heaven" it must be that is awaiting this guy, after telling the suicide the world is better off without him and sarcastically wishing him luck. A real thrill to be knocking back pints of St. Peter’s amber with him. But if G*d gave him such a "sweet life", it makes sense that the gates of heaven await him, too. Although if the suicide has any loved ones, I’m sure they would think differently about this guy’s fate.

Or is it irony? Is he just being ironic?

And now, a word from our sponsor original suicide note poster, basically unedited:

Date: 2003-09-25, 2:25PM

By the time many of you read this, I will either be on my way or gone. As I stated before, my post is not a cry for help or a plea for attention. I just wanted to voice some feelings before I left.

I thank all of you for your responses. I have read all of them with careful thought. To those of you who care and offered assistance, I thank you especially, but do know I have sought all of the help I have been able to stand. To those of you who write back in anger, I feel for your losses, but do know those feelings you express are yours. You have experienced a loss. Those who left you did not. Please do not be angry with us who are done here. We are merely offering a good-bye. Finally, to those of you who have offered comedy, you have indeed brought a smile to my face. Not enough to make me wish to stay, but a smile nonetheless. As far as donating my personal belongings, I have already taken care of most of that and have only the bare minimums to take with me.

To those of you who offered tears, I sincerely apologize. It was not my intention to make you sad. Please do not be. This is a positive choice for me, and I am not sad about it. I am sorry for your empathy. And I am sorry I cannot feel the same as you.

To those of you who have responded with inanities: please understand you are part of the problem. You offer such excellent proof of part of that problem against which I rail. You lives are vapid and empty with the exception of your own self-absorption. Please do not be part of the problem. Instead of just complaining, either fix the problems in your life, or politely excuse your selves.

As for my parking, space, that indeed will be up for grabs. And that shall be explained later.

Thank you all again for your responses. I shall continue reading your responses until late this afternoon when I depart.

Some of you have expressed the morbid curiosity so endemic to our human condition. I do not blame you; I would be curious as well. I have enlisted the aid of a close friend who will be posting the details of my departure tomorrow after I am gone. If I post such details now, some of you will doubtlessly attempt to notify officials at a needless expense to our society.

This friend is NOT assisting me with the act of suicide. Only with some of the details after I am gone.

Again, thank you for all of your comments and feelings. I do appreciate all of it, but I am just done. I have thought about this for several years now and have explored many different options. Needless to say, none of the options have blossomed in to anything I wish to pursue.

Thank you, and good-bye.

There’s nothing I can identify about this to suggest that it’s a fake, i.e., not by the original poster. Aside from the new mention of a "friend", it’s very consistent with the tone and content of the original suicide note. I think suicides tend to take meticulous care of relative trivialities, and this posting seriously addresses all the types of responses that were posted. He reiterates points from the original note, and they're consistent.

There was a post later on that was purportedly by the original poster, saying it was all a hoax to get a rise out of people, and I regret not copying it for further examination, but my impression was that it was clearly a forgery.

There were no follow-ups the next day by the "friend". It’s possible that the suicide overestimated the friend’s willingness or ability to be so "objective" and go along with it. It is also possible that the suicide backed down at the last moment and found some other course to follow.

a bit of realistic:
Mind you, I'm fully aware of the conceit this weblog takes in even suggesting that anyone cares whether I commit suicide or can justify it. The truth is that I systematically phase people out of my life in order to remain abstract, nominally significant, and ultimately inconsequential.

Suicide note response #21, heavily edited for brevity and the gist of it:

Date: 2003-09-25, 1:53PM

I am witnessing right now a life that is tragically and painfully being drained away by liver cancer. Day by day, my grandfather’s soul leaves us. He used to be so vibrant, always laughing and telling jokes, a sparkle and love for life in his eyes. That was before he started drinking and became anti-social and resentful of the family for “leaving” him. He basically drank himself to death. Despite all the hurt, pain, and anger that his drinking caused, my family is 100% here for him through his last days. All of the pain has gone away and turned in to love, sympathy and sorrow for what happened and what could have been.

How does this apply to you, my friend? My grandpa could have changed his life, but he took the easy way out - alcohol. When I look into his sunken eyes, I see so much pain and regret. I’m so sad that he is dying with all his pain and mistakes left unresolved. I wish I could have helped him while he was still able to make a change, but he had to do it for himself, but he had no desire to even try. Now that there’s no turning back, I see him living every last second in complete fear. I don’t know what happens when we come to the end of our rope, but I see my grandfather clinging on to life with every last breath he has. He’s scared as hell and we can see it in his eyes. Please listen to my words.... merely “enough” is never enough. You CAN make a change in your life, whether it’s talking to a counselor, taking anti-depressants, consider what is making you stressed/sad/unhappy. You can turn your life around, remember, it is what you make of it.

This is terrible about her grandfather, but the moral of this story of consequences and regret is not directly applicable to suicides. The grandfather made his decisions to act (and not act), consequences were manifested, and he lived to regret it. For successful suicides, consequences and regret are precluded, although the consequences and regret of failure probably should be considered.

As for the applicable part of this response, for the downtrodden, for the messed up life, I also believe in the human spirit and the ability to change and turn a life around if the will to do so is there. For the person considering suicide, consequences and potential regret should be considered, as well as whether the issue is a matter of having a screwed up life and whether there is the ability to change things and turn things around.

Again, this response implies that suicide is an "easy way out", which it isn't. It's more of a desperate way out, but how someone acts in desperation is hardly the easy way, unless by "easy", you mean easy to choose.

For me, living is extremely easy, existing is a combination of easy and hard, and I don't expect anyone to understand that, but there's nothing easy for me about dying or choosing to die. I am well aware that even after death, the trials I believe I will face might be harder than this life can ever be (but like any test, there's always the chance that it will be a breeze, depending on ability and preparedness). I also know that in my next life, should that be the case, I might end up in far more difficult circumstances to pursue my journey. So what's my rush? More on that later perhaps.

Anyway, the message in this response is good for suicides in general, but I don't like that she missed the part in this particular suicide's note which mentioned that he had already tried turning things around. So it's like she's moralizing and giving advice without even listening to him. Hm, she should join the mental health profession.

I intentionally left in the part of this response where she mentions the family is 100% behind him, even though he dug his own grave and caused so much distress. People who call suicides "selfish" might also call this grandfather selfish (or they might not, because that would bring to light that everything we choose to do is selfish, and for condemnation purposes, they just want to confine selfishness to suicides). Anyway, I wish those people would try imagining treating suicides this humanely, instead of taking the easy way out and calling them selfish, as if it resolves their participation in the issue.

I talked to my parents last night, and I mentioned I'm quitting my job. It has been an unwritten rule of our "cease-fire" that they are not allowed to exert pressure, coerce, or manipulate any aspect of my life, so it was with unease that I heard them saying that I shouldn't quit my job until I had another one lined up. It was thin ice they were on when they said they didn't want to see me looking for a job again for a year like before.

In the end, I recalled the other half of that cease-fire rule, that I am not to allow them to exert pressure, coerce, or manipulate any aspect of my life. And this should all be amusing as I have been unemployed for eight months already. So when I visit them next month to return their car, I can either tell them I quit, or continue keeping them in the dark. It doesn't materially matter, they're not active participants in my life and I don't care either way. But if there's an issue of who's in control, then I should tell them just to remind them.

This is really a very minor consideration on my mind.

There are still several more of those responses. I intended to stop posting them and my commentary once I felt I had exhausted the issues presented for myself, but hey, I like to process that shit. The issue is both very simple and very complicated. And I'm sure I'm not going to convince anyone of anything. I'm sure my commentary isn't even consistent.

I'm almost done with the Threefold Lotus Sutra for the second time. Never has there been a book that had me so captivated that I wouldn't recommend. I think I've heard it referred to it as the Buddhist analogy of the Qu'ran, the Bible, or the Torah. It's the final sermon before this Buddha's final extinction, but it's not that straightforward; I would go so far to say that it's not even in this dimension. Even though it's a book written for humans, it is a sermon at the highest level of Buddhism, the understanding of which humans can barely scratch. Trickle down theory maybe.

It's personal. What I get out of it may not be what anyone else gets out of it. And it's a bit confounding of a read. It's a bit confounding to read. My reading of it is informed by modern scientific cosmology and astrophysics. To understand the sheer size and esotericism involved, I'm thinking of galaxies, stars, and light years and a fourth spatial dimension, just as a tool, just to help bend my mind in a way more familiar. It's a brilliant work that any Buddhist or person with Buddhist leanings should at least run their eyes over.

Suicide note response #20, I missed copying the time stamp, heavily edited for spelling and syntax:

Hey, how's it going? I posted earlier basically telling you not to do it. Well, I've read other people's posts and the majority is telling you NOT to kill yourself. So PLEASE for the love of God - do not kill yourself. There is so much in store for you if you just open your eyes and make this day the beginning of something new. I'm telling you - APPRECIATE what you have and you will have a newfound positive outlook on life. Man, look at all these people on Craigslist, I thought all they do is whine and bitch but look what you've brought out of us. I, for one, love to complain here about stupid shit, but when I read your post, I was dumbfounded. I never thought I was capable of saying kind words to a stranger, but man I care. Yes I care for you! Be strong. Oh, to the people telling this man to go and kill himself already, if you're in such a hurry, why don't you kill yourselves - fucking assholes. DIE! Craigslist will be so much better without you selfish twisted fucks. Sorry to end this with a rant. But hey, I still care - think hard, don't do it.

Peace & love to you, my friend.


I can’t identify which earlier posting was this person’s, but it does sound an awful lot like that annoying cheerleader. Both posts mention "new beginning". By this time, the clichés are just making my eyes glaze over; not even worth picking apart. They're hurting my head.

Suicide note response #19 is another response to the other respondents, lightly edited for syntax and spelling:

Date: 2003-09-25, 1:42PM

Attention ALL Decent Human Beings, Assbags, and Those Who Don't Give a Shit:

Have you read all these response postings? What you will find is a complete and fascinating representation of society:

The "decent human beings" that are trying to help this poor soul, or fake, are the ones who keep this insane culture intact and functional. Bravo to your collective conscious. May you live forever.

Those "who don't give a shit" look at this guy as another statistic. They read it in the paper every day. It doesn't affect them. These are the guys asking (perhaps tongue in cheek) for his parking space, $$, furniture, etc. You idiots are asking for this stuff because your character is so flawed that you don't have the tools to earn it yourself. May your mother die tomorrow.

The "Assbags" encouraging the guy to JUMP or Do It, comprise the sewer system of our society and the foundation of all that we would like to eliminate for the good of a better world. May you die tomorrow.


Can’t really comment on that response! Tawk amungst yuhselves.

Suicide note response #18, heavily edited for spelling, grammar, and syntax:

Date: 2003-09-25, 12:36PM

Notice how everyone who had someone close to them die, are such ANGRY mother fuckers. Please don’t take your anger out on this confused person - it is not going to bring back your loved ones. Imagine if your father had written a post like that, then some asshole told him how much of an asshole he was, and to fuck off!! Imagine that, he would have probably done it sooner. INSTEAD, GIVE REASONS TO LIVE, you mean, heartless assholes.

I, myself, will be of minimal help in this department, because I am not too happy myself. But just get in a car and drive, the beauty of this state makes me feel better every time I see it. You have to remember, if you kill yourself, you are not hurting yourself, you are hurting everyone who loves you.

And that last guy who posted, with the .44, that was a great guy. Such a good outlook, he's a fighter. That is someone who I can take strength from. I am a guy and I don’t say this about other men very much. but he is really a great person, and a really cool dude.

Hm, I guess this is more a response to the other responses than a response to the suicide note. But I think a suicide can indirectly get something from this note. Not the banal cliché portions of going for a drive and hurting everyone who loves him, and not the patronizing prejudice against suicides implied in calling him "this confused person," but just what he’s expressing to the other response writers. That’s pretty positive.

Response #17 has absolutely nothing to do with the original suicide note. Like the "Buddha Boy" response, this idiot was inspired by the suicide note just to condescend and blow hard about his sophomoric knowledge. I’m only posting it to show the range of idiocy there is regarding responses to suicide. I tried to trim it down, but every sentence is a gem, a real eye-roller:

Date: 2003-09-25, 12:35PM

Ah, the Human Condition. To live by the flesh and be tortured by the universal soul. To realize that our individual life is just a speck in the dark, but to recognize that we make up a whole. Remember that, you are part of a whole. Whether you would want to admit it or not, you are. I won't tell you to turn to God, I won't tell you to think of all those you will leave behind, I won't tell you to persevere through your problems. I will tell you that everyone suffers, that is the Human Condition. To be a virtuous person, you must struggle, you must force yourself to find the medium between two extremes. To take one extreme over the other is not virtuous. Throughout the ages men have dealt with the same problems over and over, why do you think people still recite Shakespeare to children, why is our education system still based on the principles of The Liberal Arts? People struggle everyday, the degree to which everyone struggles is subjective. I am not in the business of telling people what to do, of telling people what they should care for, or telling someone what should be their goals. Rather, I will tell people to Think. Think before you speak, Think when you read, Think when you act, Think when you feel. Use your mind. Do not subscribe yourself to prize other's thoughts, but your own. But continually change your thoughts as you receive new information. Think about where you are, where you are going, what you are doing. If Socrates is correct, by taking your own life you are interrupting the Universal Soul. If Socrates is correct, all that you wish to know is already present within yourself, it is just a matter of time before you uncover and remind your soul of the knowledge which it already posses. If you read one book today, read Plato's "Republic". And if you do decide to live tomorrow, read St. Thomas Aquinas' "Confessions". If you don't have them, I'll even lend them to you, but don't make a choice until you have thought it through entirely. The entirety of the situation does not just subscribe to your job, your home, you family or lack of, your spouse or lack thereof, your money or lack thereof. Think.

Suicide note response #16:
Date: 2003-09-25, 12:23PM

Boy are you going to be surprised!!

You are like a child who, because he cannot see his mother in the other room thinks she is not there anymore.

The body we inhabit is far more subtle that you realize. Just because we have been enculturated and educated into believing our physical reality as perceived by our senses is all that there is, that doesn't make it so.

I am not talking about the existence of God or 'a higher order'. I am talking about Reality, Bub.

So you can go ahead and kill the body, and just as the child that discovers his mother is just around the corner, so too will you discover that a subtler form of you, yes the same you that now thinks, judges and acts, will continue existing. You can't actually kill yourself; you can only remove yourself from your gross body.

How long will you suffer after your suicide, bound to the results of this earthly life that you threw away? Without going into further details, since you are 32, expect to suffer for your immature act for another 68 years(!).

C'mon, isn't there something else you'd rather do?
The choice is yours. Don't be a chump.

Buddha Boy

Oy vey! What an embarrassing response from "Buddha Boy". I guess if you read little enough of any religious doctrine you, too, can be condescending and moralistic. OMG, what the hell is that metaphor of the mother in the next room?!!

He thinks just because there’s a Buddha in this room, it is there. He opens his mouth to show his great knowledge using specialized terms such as "gross body" and "subtle body", only to find the people he was talking to have already moved halfway down the block.

I slap his shaved monk's head 56 times. Ah, what is this? So much hair as if not shaven at all.

He is like the fifth blind man describing an elephant, wherefore unbeknownst to him he cannot even find the elephant and wanders in the field, "ah, this is what an elephant is!"

Suicide note response #15, edited for spelling:

Date: 2003-09-25, 12:09PM

Suicide is the ultimate act of cowardice. My father killed himself when I was six because he believed that he had fucked up so bad in life that there was no alternative. What he didn’t think about was the son and wife he left behind. He really screwed me up by doing this. I saw my friends with their fathers having a great time. He missed me growing up. Would he be impressed with all that I have accomplished? There is no way to know because he killed himself because he was too chicken shit to own up to his mistakes. There is always an alternative, always a way out. If you fucked up then get over it and move on. If you hate society in the Bay Area then move. There is no excuse to end your own life when so many people who want to live are killed every day.

It makes me so angry when I hear people talk about throwing their life away. So go ahead and take the easy road. Forget about all of those around you, you selfish bastard. You will never know what you have missed.

I sense much anger in this one. Same deal, this writer didn’t take responsibility for himself to heal from his father’s suicide and "move on", and selfishly only thinks of himself and what he missed. He blames his father for screwing him up, even though I’m sure he could have accomplished that on his own.

He envies his friends having great times with their fathers, but what if his father didn’t commit suicide and became a drunken, abusive bastard, bitter because of all his mistakes, and too chicken shit to off himself, he takes the easy road and lives, and starts taking it out on his son and wife? The "what could have been" condemnation of suicides is ultimately self-defeating.

So would the father be impressed with all the writer accomplished? Maybe, maybe not. But he, himself, has obviously accomplished something without his father. Who knows "what could have been" if his father lived, but he should not lose sight of the "what has been", and if he thinks his father would have been proud, take pride in it.

It makes me so angry when selfish bastards go comparing someone who wants to kill himself with people who are killed every day. Is it a sense of outrage how unfair the world is? Hey, the world isn’t fair, people get killed and people kill themselves. Someone not killing him or herself isn’t going to prevent someone else from being killed.

I love the angry logic in this type of response that sort of goes: "You’re such a worthless jerk for wanting to kill yourself. Go ahead and kill yourself."

just for the record:
I know that if I killed myself, there would be a considerable impact on certain people. I know my worth to the people around me, and yes I would still go ahead and do it if that was my choice, and I would leave it to them to deal with it and move on. I think of all the times before I could have done it, and I imagine the sorrow or shock it would have caused, and then I think of now, October 2003; life would have gone on.

I don't think many people would be too surprised by the news. Most people know at least something is up, if only because of my arms. No one asks anymore, I don't really hide it anymore. Anyone who is completely surprised didn't know me at all and don't really matter maybe. For everyone else, the shock of the news would be somewhat abstract. They hear the news, they're shocked, they're saddened, maybe shaken, but it's abstract; there's no fundamental impact or shift to their lives.

Ritu was my boss, but we were chummy and hung out after work a lot. When she killed herself, it was a shock and a surprise. I always imagined myself as being able to keep emotionally detached from things like that, but you can't prepare yourself for something like that. It's impossible to imagine what it feels like when someone dies. And having gone through it, I can't even bring myself back to feel that feeling again.

I had spoken to her on the phone just days before and she sounded upbeat and was looking forward to returning to the firm. I got the news from one of the attorneys that was close to her. She knew we were kinda close and was putting it to me to tell the rest of the team. I immediately got into responsibility mode and sucked it up and accepted what I had to do. Then I went back to my cube to send an email for the team to meet up, and as soon as I got there, I lost it. My cube neighbor had to take me outside and it took 15 minutes sitting on the curb before I could collect myself to even tell her what happened.

So there was the immediate impact and shock, but quite honestly, in the big picture, her suicide was fairly abstract to me. She had already dismissed herself from the firm, she was back home in New York getting treated, I was already re-assigned to another team, we were as chummy as a boss and an underling could be in the year we knew each other, but we weren't great friends. There was no material change in my life, except knowing that Ritu was gone. I don't consider the future possibility of meeting up again a material change. Losing that is too bad, but the future is always uncertain, so I don't consider it material.

Do I miss her? Yes. Do I wish she were still around? Yes. Would she have enriched my life? Probably. Do I hold it against her that she left? No. I also missed my chance in the days she was spiraling out of control to proactively help her. I kept my distance. I don't blame myself, but I can't blame her either then. I made my choice, she made hers. If society condemns her, it should condemn me and all of us who were close to her.

My role in the lives of all the people around me is at some level of abstraction. There is no one in my life who would experience a material change in their lives because of my leaving. I'm not saying there would be no or minimal impact, I'm just saying that it would be abstract and temporary. It would be news to receive, react to, process, but then move on.

For some people, I anticipate a huge emotional reaction, great sorrow, flatter myself not, and maybe it would last a long time, maybe it would create a hole in their lives, maybe they would never fully get over it and they'd be sad every time they thought of it. But none of those people are here in my life, direct, non-abstract.

The people who are here in direct contact in my life aren't close. They are abstract, very much like my relationship with Ritu. They'd feel the shock and have to go through their emotional response, but no material change in their lives. There's no one I hang out with regularly. They're all at arms length. And whenever we do hang out, it's nothing deep or meaningful; often annoying or aggravating.

These people don't even know me, so any lingering feelings, I'm sorry, are their own responsibility. I'm not responsible for them, just as they are not responsible for whatever led me to my decision. You can say that they're the ones who have to deal with the fallout, but gimme a break, I'm the one who's dead. Shut up. I don't think it's over when I die, and it is with apprehension that I find out what's next.

I don't want to diminish how my parents will feel, I expect that they will be devastated, but our relationship is still at some level of abstraction. They don't know me or anything that's going on in my life, and they don't play an active role in it. I hated them for most of my life, and we're only cordial now because I unilaterally decided it should be so.

None of the issues were ever addressed, allowing them to be complacent about them. I won't bring them up now to try to get to some resolution, because the war ended up as a no-win stand-off, and I have no reason to believe that bringing them up anew would not just lead to that same uncomfortable and tense stand-off.

I decided to cut my losses and heal in my own way, and this is it. I'm still suicidal as I've always been (or think I am or act like I am, after all I'm still alive), but I gave them years of feeling that I was behaving like a real son. I have conversations with them instead of making our phone calls strained, with me giving one word answers and little information. Years of visits where I wasn't cold and stiff, letting them know I was only there out of my feeling of obligation, returning my feeling that they only raised us out of obligation and social expectations.

And it's real. I didn't do that out of spite, to make it even worse for them when I die, gimme a break. In my old age, I give it to them that they did an OK job raising us, they didn't do a bad job. All families have issues. That doesn't diminish the abstract nature of our current relationship.

And I know that the "no material change" yardstick doesn't apply to parents or brothers. Raising me and growing up with each other are enough for my death to create a definite material change in their lives. But for my direct life now, our family bond is of blood, and of cold comfort and little solace to my soul. They can figure out the rest for themselves, I think they love me enough to do so.

There are many people who think I'm a special person, but I'm not special to anyone. By special, I mean that they want to know me and they want me to know them. I had a class of people who I was considering separately, people who aren't in my physical life, but were deep in my heart. But I just found out that my feeling of closeness with one of them was my own creation and not based in reality. I assumed it with her, and probably with the others, too. I don't doubt the love or the importance, but I no longer believe they are any less abstract than the people physically around me. Distance prevails to enhance the abstraction.

I have no partner or spouse, no kids or pets, no one I'm responsible for or co-existent with, no co-workers, roommates, or bandmates, no one is relying on me for anything, no best friend forever, no "best friend" for that matter. Again, I'm not saying I have or will have no impact, but these are the facts.

Suicide note response #14, edited for grammar, spelling, and flow:

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:49AM

Bro:
COWBOY THE FUCK UP !!!!
You are not the only soul that lives in pain. Shit, I am 34. I lost one woman I loved to an aneurysm. I did $1400 damage to my new car a couple weeks ago. I gained 40 pounds because I let myself get depressed and torn up over a woman who is now in love with someone else, and I fell in love with the same woman that gave me an STD and then dumped me by my finding her on Match looking for someone new. And I cannot blame her because my attitude was much like yours. I am almost bankrupt for the 2nd time in my young life. Do not punch out early. As shitty as it can get , there has to be a reason why you are here and you have to believe that. Think about it. You are not meant to end your own life, short of a horrible situation (like those poor souls who jumped on 9-11, rather than burn) you need to step back and realize that something has to be good in your life. As a person that battles that mother fucker known as depression almost daily, you gotta fight it man. Fuck, not to be a smart-ass, but did you see Beetlejuice? You want to be a civil servant forever in the next life? Or what if you are sent to Hell and your hell is to live forever in the life you have now? Buy a puppy. You will never be alone and they will love you unconditionally. I think you should rethink what you are planning and this is coming from someone who has a .44 with no bullets because I get that same feeling when I get truly down. But I won't do it because I am a fighter and you have inside of you, too. Please bro . . . I feel your pain and I know it, but I believe you can fight back, too. Just try.
Hell, email me if you want to, I would rather give you a hand trying than let you go.
Hang tough, bro, please!!!!!

This response isn’t as offensive as it seems at first blush, it looks like that’s just his style. It’s a “tough love” approach, but it’s not condescending. He puts himself on the level and describes that he’s no “winner” in life. He battles depression and has suicidal thoughts, but has a clear idea what his opinions are and has his own approach to his problems. All good.

I also think that this guy is compassionate, and if the Craig’s List guy did commit suicide, this response writer wouldn’t condemn him. He’d feel sorry for the guy and think it was a mistake, but that’s his informed opinion. That's just my uninformed impression.

I personally don’t like the “I can do it, so so should you” undertones, but here it sounds more imploring than moralizing or condescending. This is a response that I would take into consideration. It ultimately wouldn’t change my mind, but I would want to consider these things and run them through my mind before doing anything.

Suicide note response #13, slightly edited just to clean it up:

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:49AM

I lost someone to suicide recently, and it is one of the most shaking experiences one can endure. He was frustrated and thought his life worthless, deciding that suicide was the best call. He didn't listen to the people around him offering help. The emotions it leaves behind are overwhelming, and I always wonder what I could have done different, or what would he do if he was here. I can only tell you that those who you think don't give a shit will be hurting for a long time. Your life means something to them.

Death is inevitable, why choose it at 32?

This is a good response. The writer gives some insight into the person she knew, but doesn’t project any of that onto the Craig’s List suicide. She tells her personal experience and what it looked and felt like afterwards. No judgments or accusations, just telling him from experience that the survivors will be hurting. This is the kind of response I imagine from someone who was hurt, may be still hurting, but has taken the responsibility and effort to heal.

Ironically for me, she presents the suicide in a way that I pity him. I don’t think his reasons were good enough, and I don’t think he should have done it. If she’s right about what she wrote, this is a selfish suicide and a slap in the face of people around him.

He thought his life was worthless and that was a reason for leaving it. He made that decision for everyone else, he projected it on them, and he was wrong. If he didn’t listen to people, that’s selfish. And if people are around you offering help and you still go and do it, even I can’t support that.

For me, life feeling worthless is not a good reason to go. If you're frustrated with life, I don't think that's a good enough reason to go. Everyone has to go some time, so if you're gonna choose when yourself, you might as well go with some peace of mind. The catch, of course, is that if you have some peace of mind, you'll often choose not to go.

With all my responses to these responses, I should clarify that I don't condone or support suicide for anyone. I also don't condone or support condemning them or prospective suicides. I just wish our society had a healthier acceptance of death and understanding of suicide.

J-town

I'm not setting any dates anymore. If I decide it's time to kill myself, I'll just do it. I have all the materials I need. But from experience, as long as I'm not doing it, it's safe to assume that I won't.

I don't want to cause anyone anxiety anymore. I hadn't been looking past the end of Daylight Savings or the end of October because there are still things I wanted to do, including finishing the Threefold Lotus Sutra and reading through the Tibetan Book of the Dead again, and also spend two weeks at a monastery. Now a thing about returning my car to New Jersey has come up, so I'm looking at living well into November.

No rush, I'm not going to cram any last things I want to do, and when it's time to go, it's time to go; it's how I've built my life.

Response #12, lightly edited for grammar, with one curious exception, and spelling and syntax (hey, I edit to make it bearable to read):
Date: 2003-09-25, 11:37AM

You know that somebody has to care. The fact that you wrote out to the CL community says something. You really don't want to end your life. I really think that this could be a new beginning.

Sounds like you gave up on life. Don't. Life is not really that bad. Some of us have problems that are worse than yours and than that are not. But if everyone that terminated their lives wrote out as you did, maybe some would still be here today.

Sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders. Why not take all of those thoughts and turn them around. I, for one, will miss you. Who knows, maybe we already know each other. Maybe we will meet later and be great friends. Why take that away from us?

If it's someone that you need to talk to, I'm here. I would miss that fact that you did not try to reach out. But I do believe that you are in a silent way. Using CL for that. Some of the responses were good, others horrid. Give me this, leave me this. Shame, shame, shame.

Look at what you have done in the past, and how many people that your life has influenced. The many smiles that you've put on faces. The laughter that you caused at parties and at work. Do you really want to give all that up? I think not.

And lets not forget your family, that I'm sure loves you very much. Why put that much grief on them. Think about it first. Talk to people.

Don't cut yourself short, grow with life. Take the punches and fight back. Come out a winner. Show life you’re in charge. Do it. DO IT NOW!!!!!!

Again, I'm a friend that cares, talk to me if you need to. I'm always here.

OMG, this response is so funny!! Maybe she was cheerleader in high school or a previous life! Responses like this make me shake my head and chuckle, thanks for the larf. "Do you really want to give all that up? I think not". HI-larious. As a rule, don't engage a potential suicide by saying, "You don't really want to end your life" (you big kidder!). I also like the “Why take that away from us?” Don’t kill yourself, live for the possibility of living for me. I have a feeling she’s Asian or Asian American.

Talk to her? No, I don't think so. If she talks the way she writes, she would probably aggravate me so much I'd end up killing her. Shame, shame, shame.

Response #11 to the Craig's List suicide note, edited for grammar and spelling:

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:37AM

I have read other posts sympathizing with you. I disagree. You are being selfish. My father attempted suicide years ago when he was going through a rough period. Luckily, someone found him before his overdose became permanent. I would have been destroyed to live my life without him, especially having to know that he ended it. Today, we are closer than ever. Troubled times have passed.

My point is that somewhere, somebody needs you. You may not know it; you may not even have met them yet. But I guarantee you that somebody will be negatively affected by your selfish, cowardly decision.

So for your own good, I pull no punches. If you go through with this, you are a selfish, cowardly quitter, who is too busy wallowing in his own self-pity to see the true beauty that the gift of life is. So many have had it taken from them, and could have done so much with it. So many have had it taken from them, who never wanted to leave. And you want to just give it up. I have no sympathy for that.

Get over yourself and choose life.

Lovely, a classic "tough love" approach. The best I can figure is that the tough love approach sees suicide as 100% self-pity, and tough love will make him come to his senses and not kill himself. But how does the tough love approach expect the suicide to respond?

- "You’re selfish", "Yea, you're right, I should stop, shouldn't I?"
- "It’s a selfish, cowardly decision", "Hm, I don't want to be a coward. You wanna go shoot some hoops?"
- "You’re a selfish, cowardly quitter who is too busy wallowing in his own self-pity to see the true beauty that the gift of life is", "Now I feel even worse. Aren't you gonna tell me I'm 'worthless and weak'?"
- "I have no sympathy for you", "I didn’t ask for your sympathy, get the fuck away from me!"
- "Get over yourself and choose life", "Hey man, I’m pro-choice, aren’t your kind supposed to want me dead anyway?"

Tough love is pretty irrelevant and ineffectual for suicides, and probably has a better chance of ending up with a suicide or a suicidal gesture. If you have no sympathy, the best thing you can do is encourage them to do it if you really don't care and want them to do it, or if you don't want them to do it, just get the fuck away. If you have no sympathy but don't want them to do it, your thoughts aren't going to be of any help, so keep them to yourself and be gone, damn spot.

There are some interesting points in this response, though. He acknowledges that knowing his father had ended his own life would have made it especially devastating. We all die, anyone around us can die at any time, but there's something particularly disturbing when one of us chooses to die. When someone just dies, the death is the entire issue. But when it's suicide, there's a whole nother dimension added to it. We can't hear of a suicide and just take it as someone having "just died". Even though the afterfact is still the same, they're still just dead.

That ties into the "happy ending" aspect to this response's experience (which may have helped him be so self-righteous and unsympathetic). A completed suicide includes: 1) the attempt, the self-committed act; and 2) the death. Death, we all know, can hit at anytime, and as bothersome as that is, it's the attempt, the self-committed act, that really, really gets our goats regarding suicides.

This response experienced the attempt, but not the death, and that results in happy ending. No resentment that he could have been gone. The father did the act, he had the full intent, but without the death, all the weight that would have been put on the act is pardoned. Even though the act was done. I know I'm twisting the logic around into illogic like a mobius strip, but I just find you humans so damn curious.

Response #10, edited for grammar:

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:32AM

If you are willing to die, then you are willing to do the unimaginable. If you are willing to do the unimaginable, then why not sell everything, take your savings, and go to the place in the world that you think is the most beautiful. Look around. If your job makes you unhappy, quit it. Don't worry about getting something first. Just quit. It’s amazing what that can do for your spirits.

I just got back from a year of travel. It is a beautiful, big world out there with things to see and amazing people that are waiting to meet you. There are people who have nothing, who manage to face the day with courage and dignity everyday. Meet them. It will change you.

My point - if you are willing to die, then you are willing to leave. Go forth and seek and find. You matter. Really. Don't make a terrible mistake.

Some similar themes to previous responses, one being the suggestion to go proactively live in a different way to see if that changes your view. Maybe it will work, it depends on the person. I guess it doesn't hurt to suggest it. But it won't work on a suicide who either proactively wants to die or proactively not live. If the decision is made, this kind of response is irrelevant.

There’s also that curious logic of “if you’re willing to die, then you’re willing to blah, blah, blah”. Suicides tend to experience a mental tunnel vision, and being willing to die means . . . nothing else, they’re willing to die.

This response also contains the common mistake of telling a suicide that there are people who are worse off, and since those people can face it and handle it, so should he or she. I guess that’s supposed to guilt the suicide out of doing it, but it tends to make them feel worse. Now they feel like wimps and losers, too, so why shouldn’t they do it?

This response comes across like he knows something, when he really knows nothing about this person. Why is killing himself an unqualified “terrible mistake”? How does he know continuing living would not be a terrible mistake? He says it like it’s a fact.

If he really thinks it’s a fact, it’s only his own fact, not necessarily the suicide’s, it certainly wouldn’t be a fact to me. Fact: if I commit suicide, it would not be a mistake. If he tells me my fact is wrong, I tell him his fact is wrong. Who are we to dictate facts to each other?

Also, "Meet them. It will change you." Fuck you, condescending wank. Would my travel C.V. shut you up?

Response #9, heavily edited for grammar, not at all for content.

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:28AM

I tried to kill myself few months ago. No one knows how many times I was thinking about jumping off my balcony or taking sleeping pills since then. I thought no one knew how I feel or about things that happened in my life. Sure, life's not perfect, it never is. But people do struggle everyday, it's just the way it is. Just trying to be happy (whatever it means to you). I ran down to the street after crying for hours, I decided to have a long walk, then I saw a mother holding her kids, a guy walking his dog; you can feel the wind touching your skin. Then I realized life's not so bad. One thing for sure, being alive is not so bad.

This is a good response, I love this response. Suicide is a decision, it’s a personal choice. You’re not going to stop them if they don’t want to be stopped. The best thing you can do is make them want to be stopped.

The writer of this response gets into the same space or a similar space, it helps that she had been there before, and non-intrusively puts her experience and wisdom into the space, not down the suicide’s throat. She’s non-confrontational and doesn’t put the suicide on the defensive.

She implicitly acknowledges that his choice is his own, but she presents herself, she made her own choices and look at her. She’s OK. Maybe not perfect, maybe not happy ending, maybe this is not the end of the story at all. But for right now, she's OK.

Response #8:

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:26AM

Suicideland is what I used to call it; I spent a few years where it seemed to be the fashion in my crowd. In one eight year period, I remember seven suicides: my dad, my cousin, my ex-girlfriend, my high school buddy, two co-workers, and my brother's best friend.

While I can empathize with feelings of hopelessness, etc., as I am human too, what you may not realize is the level of devastation left behind when someone kills him or herself. It isn't just something you do to yourself; it's something you do to everyone who knows you, everyone who raised you from a baby, everyone ever involved in your life.

Of course, that's the point: suicide is not self-directed entirely, is it? It's a way to get even; a way of releasing anger. Like seppuku, it is designed to humiliate all who drove you to it. Once they see your dead corpse, they'll be sorry, eh?

Well, bub, there is nothing noble about a petulant act of selfish nastiness. And thanks for sharing, buddy; those of us who've been through it are always thrilled at being reminded of how brutishly nasty some humans can be to one another.

This response starts off well-reasoned and makes good points, but then degenerates into the hostility of someone who hasn't healed from the anger and hurt of surviving a suicide; suicides in this case. There is a variation on the "suicide is the ultimate fuck you to everyone you knew" theme from the previous hostile response, #4.

In this case, it is posed as affecting every person "ever involved in your life". That's when this writer, in an almost paranoic frenzy, starts sliding down the slippery slope and begins accusing suicides of intending to hurt the people around them! Seriously, the first two paragraphs read totally differently from the last two paragraphs.

He mentions seppuku as being "designed to humiliate the people who drove you to it". My guess is that one of those seven people he knew used seppuku since he is mentioning it in this context (especially since that is an entirely inaccurate description of seppuku and its "design"). Furthermore, he mentions nobility in the next paragraph. Seppuku was considered a noble, or honorable, form of suicide in Japan. The writer of the Craig's List suicide note mentions nothing about being "noble". This response is projecting noble intent on this suicide as a way of expressing his hurt and anger at whoever it was who used seppuku.

As with the previous hostile response, this one ends off with a flair of his own sarcastic, petulant, selfish (unsympathetic) nastiness. This response should have stopped after making the good point of how far-reaching a suicide can be. And that is a hard point, I can't say anything about that. It appeals to any shred of compassion left in the potential suicide to consider the human repercussions. That might turn someone around, but we get into the problem of comparing pains.

The writer of this note would have preferred to have been spared the pain of surviving all those suicides. I couldn't project on what or how far he would have been willing to go to stop them, if he were even able to. He wasn't, they were out of his control. What is in his control is the ability to heal and try to understand what happened. Those people gave up, that was their choice. If he gives up healing and understanding, that's his choice.

Response #7 to the Craig’s List suicide note, heavily edited for the gist of it since this guy is obviously not suicidal and never has been (and he rambled):

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:21AM

I decided long ago that if I reached the point where I was willing to take my life, then that should be the point I'm willing to try anything else first. Literally anything. Selling everything I own and signing up on a tramp steamer. Dancing naked in the streets. Living in the desert for 30 days. Helping children in Ghana. Going to clown school. Fasting for a week in my favorite cemetery. Feeding bears in Asia. Anything at all, no matter how strange, difficult, illogical, intimidating, or inane; any crazy thought or dream or idea I've ever had. Because absolutely NOTHING -- no embarrassment, no failure, no difficulty, nothing -- could be worse than what I'm about to do.

And there's no rush with that, is there? You can be just as dead tomorrow as today, next week as this week, or next month as this month. One extra month, week, or even day spent in any way you've ever thought, doing anything you've ever thought of in your entire life -- what's the harm?

You have now made one of the most awful, but also the most liberating decisions you could possibly make. The decision that allows you to do ANYTHING with your life. If there's anything in any darkened corner of your mind you've always wanted to do or try -- but you go through with killing yourself first anyway -- then you're just running away. And you'll know it. It will be there with you at the moment your life dwindles away. It will be the last thing you think.

So please, think about this first. Probe those corners of your mind, and if you find ANYTHING there -- do it. Because nothing could possibly be worse than what you're about to do. Don't throw away the freedom you've just given yourself.

Yea, I've got a puzzled look on my face right about now, too. That's some twisted logic there, equating the decision to commit suicide with giving oneself the ultimate freedom to "do anything". How does he make ending one's life an excuse to pro-actively live it, just in a different way?

If you have that drive to do those things because you're gonna kill yourself anyway, you have the drive to live. Doing those things is living. Conversely, if you're gonna kill yourself, you don't have the drive to do those things.

The real tragedy would not be if the guy kills himself without exhausting every possible thing that he may have ever wanted to do in his life. The real tragedy would be if this response writer, wanting to live, doesn't do the things he would only do if he decided to kill himself! How awful to be constrained not to let go and be free just because you want to live!

- "Really, honestly, probe the corners of your mind. Is there ANYTHING there that you've always wanted to do? No constraints, no worrying about consequences, what would you do?"
- "Um, I think I would kill myself."

A friend emailed me about a possible job opportunity she mentioned back in March. Apparently the Public Defenders office might be hiring paralegals now. *tick* *tick* *tick* Not sure what to do about this yet, opportunity to live a while longer? Betray my "only living solution" of entering a monastery?

I look at calendar dates, and I only pinpoint my life as far as November 1st or 2nd, including a two week trial stint at a monastery. Looking beyond that, looking beyond the end of Daylight Savings, oh, how boring and decrepit life looks.

I know I shouldn't inquire into the job, but I have an impulse to. At least nominally. I am curious to see if I could land it, but that's all. Oig, crap, I can see where this is going.

I saw a documentary today, Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. It was fantastic; anyone with even the slightest cursory curiosity about Tibet should see it. Not really related to the movie, afterwards I thought that the (im)morality of suicide really is culturally contextual.

In the movie, the voiceover mentioned a monk "doing the unthinkable", and I think it was referring to suicide by self-immolation. I thought in Tibetan religious society, yes, suicide is strictly immoral; unthinkable. But then I thought how in other societies, suicide is or was completely acceptable, even expected in certain circumstances.

Thinking about the nature of U.S. society, I think it's take it or leave it. It would be hypocritical for U.S. society to deem suicide immoral; we're already a suicidal society with our guns, and environmental destruction, and everyone standing on their rights without feeling any sense of social responsibility. So all you morons in the U.S. talking about people burning in hell for committing suicide: Phhhhbbbbttttt!!!!!!!!!

I'm re-reading the Threefold Lotus Sutra. The last time I read it was 11 years ago, before moving to California. I think I recall finding it profound, but I also remember pushing my eyes along long lists of terms and names I didn't recognize.

I'm finding it also beautiful this time through. I'm telling you, you can't make shit like that up! I've tried reading through the Q'uran through the years but never made it through. <valley>Oh my god, I sound like such a religious freak, like I should have a radio show and start, like, converting people</valley>.

I've been having trouble with discipline and focusing. Sitting and focusing my mind and concentrating had gotten really hard and frustrating. 

There's a risk in being inundated with religious reading because of the whole "institutionalized religion" thing, and I'm anti-institution. Getting filled to the brim with external written sources risks drowning out listening to my own heart. The problem is that there is a lot my own heart can't tell me. It's hard to delineate what to take on faith, and then where to draw the line. 

At the same time, I'm writing all this stuff about suicide; my comments on the responses to that Craigs List suicide note, and there are like 30 of them that I've saved. It's not a slam-dunk issue for me, I still mull over it and the morality that people stick on it. I wonder if it's the right thing to do, even though deep in my gut I feel it's not a wrong thing to do for me. My mind becomes a swamp. 

Then I think of Peter Gabriel's lyrics, "When things get so big, I don't trust them at all/You want some control, you got to keep it small" (DIY). 

Simplify. The very core of my belief is that the very essence or nature of phenomenal reality is void. All things must pass. They change, impermanent, and then gone. None of this is Real. You can choose to think all of this is real and treat it that way, there's nothing wrong with that. But once you choose to be done with that, you're not in Kansas anymore. 

I believe that the phenomenal world is a function of the law of cause and effect, which is integral to the cycle of re-birth. I also believe that it is possible to pierce the veil of the illusion of the phenomenal world to either escape the cycle of re-birth, or to continue in it with that understanding. 

I believe that disciplining and focusing one's mind through concentrated sitting is key to piercing the veil. I also believe that critical thought, more so than, but including, right thought, right actions, and right words, is just as key. I believe that progress along the path is just as much an emotional process as it is an intellectual process, if not more so. I believe keeping an open channel and open mind is crucial to receiving and reading the signs. 

Simplify. 

I don't believe in human morality except as a symbolic social phenomena. I believe that attempting to transmute all experience towards the positive is crucial. Even suicide, whether on the giving or receiving end. I believe in non-corporeal guidance, but I don't yet believe, or maybe I just don't understand the worship of non-corporeal entities. 

I think anything that is muddying up the works is shite.

Response #6, similar to #5, but not as disarming:

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:03AM

Maybe you should think it over more. You are 32 years old. Statistically you have only lived around 1/3 of your life. Find it in yourself to accept life. Weird shit happens that you can never control. And you cannot improve anyone else's life if they don't want it. Just take care that you don't treat yourself and other people like shit. It's the most you can authentically do.

My prescription for you is as follows: kung-fu dancing, making soup, flying kites, watching animals, reading books, playing music, and hearing little kids' laughter.

Dr. Oblivion

Obviously not a serious response, just a smattering of well-intentioned clichés, and the good doctor's Prescription is cute. A reasonable anonymous response to an anonymous suicide note.

Response #5 to the Craig’s List suicide note, edited heavily for grammar, spelling, and syntax (believe me, the original was not nearly this coherent):

Date: 2003-09-25, 10:53AM

I didn't come to work and intend to cry because of a complete stranger’s post. Your post has really upset me, not only because you sound like the template of what a human should be, but because you don't see that YOU do make a difference.

I realized today that life isn't so bad . . . so my tires were stolen yesterday and I was really pissed, but today I realize that tires aren't really that important. What's important is health, friends, and happiness, and from the sound of your compassion, you have your health and friends. Happiness is something you seek, and when you don't find it, you have to search for it. This is a big world and it's out there. I've been in your shoes and I'm sure a lot of people who read your post have felt the same pain.

My recommendation to you is stop and realize that living here in this rat race is not it, and it brings a lot of us down. Living in general is not easy. Take a trip, enjoy the beauty of nature and perhaps join the Peace Corp. where you contribute and see the fruit of your kindness everyday. You will see very early on how people like you make a difference. Please at least look into it.

Thinking of you all day today.

Not a bad response, nice simple sentiments, just the usual projection and failure to step inside the suicide’s shoes, despite saying she’d been there before. How does she know that he doesn’t see that he makes a difference? But there’s a simple innocence to how this response is written that disarms the clichés. The clichés have no arms. I did laugh at the Peace Corp. part, though. That was funny.

"I’m gonna kill myself"
"No, don’t do it! Join the Peace Corp.!"
"Hm, I hadn’t thought of that!"
"Please look into it."
"OK."

It really doesn’t mean anything to a suicide when you compare him or her with the situations of other people in the world. Seriously contemplating suicide requires reaching a state of self-absorption that renders such comparisons meaningless. It also requires some level of a depression-like mindset that makes preaching happiness and beauty pretty useless, too. The “life is hard” speech got old a long time ago.

Response #4 to that Craig’s List suicide note; slightly edited, but it’s better with the rough edges:

Date: 2003-09-25, 10:45AM

This is the second time in my life that I have read a note like this. The first time was when my wife of seven and a half years decided that she didn't want to live anymore. Thanks for bringing back that memory, asshole.

So, you do yourself a favor. You are conceited to think that your death affects no one. She thought so, too. Your death affects every person you have touched in your very short life. You touch more than you know. And you think no one will have to clean up? Wrong again. That's what she thought. She decided to take a bottle of Vicodin, a bottle of Flexeril, and a half gallon of Canadian Whiskey. She died alright, but before she did, she puked all over the hotel room she chose. Then someone had to come and discover the body, then the police had to come, then the medical examiner, then the coroner, then she was taken to a funeral home where she was cremated and 200 people cried. Someone had to come to the hotel room and clean up all the puke and the shit on the floor (you lose control of your bowels after you die). Me? I cried hard sobs for weeks. It's more than three years now for me. I still cry from time to time. Oh, one other thing -- suicide is the ultimate FUCK YOU to everyone you have ever met, laughed with, cried with, enjoyed sunrises or sunsets with. It's the ultimate FUCK YOU to every bird you've ever seen, or every beautiful scene that ever came into your visual cortex. Thank you for reminding me that there are still self-centered assholes like you in the world. But before you do it, let me say to you FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!! You don't get any sympathy from me. I gave at the office.

It’s all about you, isn’t it, Sparky?
This response is more about the writer's pain and anger from his wife's suicide, and focusing it on this person about whom he knows absolutely nothing. He starts off trying to bring perspective by mentioning the people who would be affected by his suicide, but he very quickly slips into the pain of memories from his wife's suicide, and down the slippery slope of anger and blame he goes until the big emotional outburst that he can't express to his wife, so he let's it out here.

This is not someone who took responsibility for himself to heal from his wife's suicide, and this is his resulting contribution to someone standing on the same precipice that his wife stood on; no sympathy, no compassion, just pain, bitterness, anger, and blame. It is sad, but not pitiable. I wouldn't pity him since it's all his doing. He made his choices. For example, he's angry that his wife gave him the "ultimate FUCK YOU", but that's the way he chooses to interpret it. Does he really believe that was her intended message? Weren't there better ways to process her death than read "fuck you" into it, as if she did it just to say that?

Also telling is that I don't think the person who wrote the suicide note mentioned anything about his death affecting no one. It's pure projection on the part of this response writer, and probably has something to do with his wife's suicide note. Interesting because if she didn't think her death would affect even her husband, then he couldn't have been doing a whole lot to make her feel like her life was worth living. No, this guy was no prize pig. It seems to me that this guy is just as much a self-centered asshole as he accuses the suicide as being. I find it very curious how he describes how she did it and what transpired, but makes no mention of why she did it, as if her reasons are unmentionable, as if she didn't have any reasons, or at least that they were not worth mentioning or affirming in this response message, which says "fuck you" very loudly. To who?

This response writer could have chosen to heal from his wife's suicide, to learn, to be a better person, to appreciate more, but instead yells "fuck you" to a total stranger who's about to end his life! I try to imagine how I would respond to someone yelling "fuck you" to me if I'm about to kill myself: ". . . um, OK?"

I'm losing this battle against the status quo. But I won't do August again. No dramatics. The sun's going down sooner each day, and I can't bear another Winter. I can't bear Daylight Savings ending. I can't bear another "holiday season". I don't know what will happen. I don't know what I will do.

After that month-long run of reading, I'm trying to strip away the religious trappings to find what I think is real to me. It's hard to distinguish what's real and what was imagination, especially when it was something I thought I understood and accepted. It makes me feel sorta "atheist", taking the concepts and mechanics and then removing the religious and faith components. It's sort of empty, and not liking that, it makes me think I'm more "Buddhist" than I like to let on.

I consider my family. It's good. My parents did a good a job as possible is my final analysis. But it doesn't change whatever I do about myself. I still consider it unthinkable that my parents die before me. It just resonates that way.

They say when you die, your life "flashes" before your eyes. I'm thinking that time ceases to exist when you die. Time is a function of perception, created by the functions of the physical brain. Consciousness may continue for a bit, but since time has stopped, who is to say "how long" it takes for consciousness to dissolve through the betweens, as described in the Tibetan Book of blah, blah, blah.

When I die and my life flashes before my eyes, I want to see it from an outside perspective, mostly from above, continuous from birth like a film being fast-forwarded, like Koyaanisqatsi, with an emphasis on the passage of each day with the sun rising and setting. Each day will be like a minute in relative "real time", and I can trace the path my life took me day by day.

In real time, that would take six hours and five minutes for each year. Four years would take a day. My life to date would take more than 8 and a half days. I think. I suck at math. Get off my back.

It will be interesting to trace my formative years that I have no recollection of. See everything from an outside point of view, every day, everywhere I went, everything I did, everyone I met, everyone I knew, everyone I loved, ships passing in the night, sparks, collisions, sunrise, sunset, seasons changing, growing up, growing bigger, progressing, changing, learning, developing, my ghost travelling.

I had a good life. It is interesting to me. It doesn't matter when it ends. I had a blast.