by Sam E. Jones

Created on: May 26, 2010

There is no understanding suicide, just as there is no understanding human nature, or love, or loneliness or despair. Suicide is a choice, but rarely one of last resort. It’s more of an escape; a means of ceasing to be the person that you are; of silencing the voice that permeates the mind.

Some people dream of suicide, or fantasize about the ways they might off themselves. Others see a bridge and decide it’s time they jumped, while others still find themselves in such a state they simply can’t imagine things ever improving enough that they might want to continue on with living.

Suicide is hard and easy; hard because you have to cross that line, and do it all by yourself; easy, because anyone can pull a trigger or walk in front of a train.

Suicide is self-importance, but so is eating, or loving, or choosing to live a life that is bereft of meaning. Suicide is selfish and an act of betrayal, but so is living your life for another or for those that believe your absence would be a problem for them.

There is no understanding suicide unless you believe you can empathize with another human being when you cannot ever possibly read his mind. Or unless you are god and if you are than you would know that there is only you and your problems and your horrible life.

There is no understanding suicide, but maybe there is hope, because if you can’t understand suicide than maybe you could instead try to understand pain, and depression and restlessness and the ability to believe that sometimes people really can fly away, if they want to bad enough. Or maybe you could think about crossing that line yourself, or pushing someone else over. Or maybe you could bite your lip when pretending to listen, because when suicide is possible, nothing else matters and nothing else ever will.

Suicide is relentless; an obsession if you will; a pleading or begging for some end to the trivial or the mundane, or worse an escape from the inner pain. Suicide is nonsense, ridiculous, absurd, because how could anyone in their right mind ever conceive of such a thing. Who indeed.

Suicide is a bubble, a world in slow motion. A depression in the atmosphere and a blight on the human condition. It is indubitably personal, yet inevitably not. Suicide is a lure, the carrot on the end of that rotting stick.

Suicide isn’t painful, living is.

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