by Evert Cilliers aka Adam Ash
You’ve got to be mad brave to whack yourself. Yep, suicide takes a lot of balls. The most courage any human can ever muster. Suicides are the bravest people who ever lived, because they commit the greatest act possible — a deed against actual existence, against their very being. They say no to life itself, and then have the courage of that unbelievable conviction to end everything. Suck on the barrel of a gun or cast themselves down from a great height on to the indifference of solid ground.
And we often resent them for it. Because they say no to all of us, to all of us who persist in living. They place the idea of living in jeopardy. They undermine our pathetic belief in life. How could they? How dare they?
Why do they say no to life? Because for them, living is not worthy. Life is too crappy to merit a fart. Not up to scratch. They feel this way because they are depressed. So depressed, there is no more pleasure in being alive; only persistent, absolute pain. And no advice from the living can help.
I know about that.
I’ve been mortally depressed in my life, clinically depressed, and thought about committing suicide, but never got around to trying it. (I believe I saved myself from depression by exercise: as a runner all my life, I think I finally ran my topsy-turvy brain chemistry into balance: if more people exercised, we’d need fewer therapists.)