A few days back I came across this
picture. Young couple in China leaped to its death from a bridge. A
photographer caught the act in his camera.
It's got me
thinking. What could scare a person who is not afraid of death itself??
This is
heartbreaking. The act of suicide. If one tries to google the statistics for
suicide rates, its a shocking figure. I don’t want this to be a mere statistic
paper and so I will not go into figures. I also strongly feel that when talking
about human lives, one should refrain from reducing them to mere numbers.
You know it already. We all know it. It’s
an issue which is serious in ALL levels of our society. From top cops to
doctors, IAS officers to hungry debt ridden farmers.
Soure:http://weheartit.com/from/lady-endy.tumblr.com
Yet, the silence which the society keeps
is shocking.
One could take any issue- Rape,
corruption, unemployment, health facilities, they all are deep rooted problems
which require complex long term solutions.
Suicide is one issue which can be solved
by just accepting the people, and talking to them.
Too often, people in depression become
automatic victims of lecturing by others. It’s as if one has the right to look
upon them. They get that “Weak” label etched on them on permanent basis. The “Big
Brother” approach seldom works. I decided to talk about this issue head on, on
a very neutral and logical level.
For people in depression, most of us believe
that suicide is a pre-planned action which a person commits after meticulous
planning.
Wrong.
Suicide is a sudden act. The idea can be
floating in your head but no one knows when or what will trigger the final act.
It’s like sudden resignation of an
employee who was thinking to quit anyways but suddenly quits one day when he
looks at a butterfly flying out a his window.
They say it’s like waking up from a
nightmare.
What triggers the reaction?
Life can be scary. So scary that death
could seem a logical end to it all. Suicide happens in a circumstance what one
could describe as the lowest point of their life.
I asked a lot of my friends this question,
the question which I asked in the beginning of this essay :
What could scare a person who is not
afraid of death itself??
Interestingly enough, most of them replied
“Life”.
Others said, “Just shows how scary/rough
life can be?”
Fine.
Of course life can be scary. This was the
reason why the young couple in China leaped to it’s death. Life they say becomes
so unbearable that embracing death becomes not a choice but a necessity.
The moment one gives up on the concept of
choice, he is like a non-living thing anyway.
Right.
So they had a tough time, they
couldn’t cope. They committed suicide.
This is how this issue ends. Every
discussion on it. Every single time. Almost like a silent approval given by
society. Society doesn’t need sad depressed people who question their life.
Nobody will side with me if I said it’s ok not to smile. In today’s
corporation, anyone who starts complaining about inhuman working hours and gets
grim about losing out on his dreams is labeled as “that guy with sad attitude”.
He can guarantee himself a pink slip in next downsizing process. It will come
faster than the Pizza Delivery from the shop next door.
In a lot of ways corporate slavery is
worse than the actual “Slavery”. They made you work in farms till you were
reduced a machine who survives just for his masters profit.
But they gave a damn if you were sad and
crying on the field. There was complete indifference. If it affected you
performance maybe a lash or two but that was it.
In modern day corporate slavery, not only
do you have to be a non human machine who sells his dreams and life for his
masters profit, but you also got to look happy about it. If you don’t look
happy, they fire you. They take away the means to feed your family. They would
kill you if they could.
Coming back to how the discussions on
Suicide ends. They had a tough life which they couldn’t endure. They ended it.
Too Bad.
Almost a justification served on a platter
to the next person who is contemplating a suicide !
How come no one points out the people who
fought for a better life in extremely horrible circumstances? How come their
story and instances are NEVER discussed to inspire our depressed section of
society who could take a step forward towards life instead of just ending it?
Why such an indifference?
Source: http://weheartit.com/from/soul0812.tumblr.com
More importantly, how come this aspect doesn't feature in minds of those of actually do commit suicide? Maybe because before
that instant they were one of us. One of us who give a damn about stories of
people who fought for survival.
Depressingly enough, this thought process
prompted me to think about situations/events which signify the lowest points of
the human existence.
I cannot think of a of a point lower than
the prison camps during the holocaust.
In 1943, Primo Levi, a young 25 year old
chemist was arrested by the fascists. He was a Jew.
He was sent to Auschwitz.
He survived.
He wrote a masterpiece, “Survival in
Auschwitz”. This is one of those rare books which talks about the mind of the
survivor instead of mere re-collection and narration of events.
I had to get back to this book to
understand what prompted men to survive in these horrifying conditions?
I will use some direct quotes from the
book for the selfish gain of this essay.
““Sooner or later in life everyone
discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause
to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable”
-Primo Levi.
In such trying times, it is some kind of
hope which kept these people going. The absolute knowledge that one day they
got to die and till then there is scope to improve the life.
Hope and Uncertainty.
There has to be reason why the truth of
death is known before something is even born. Even before it.
I think this certainty is a miracle. David
Hume described “Miracle” as “ a violation of the laws of nature”.
I’ve written this before and I will write
this again, I will never get tired writing about “Randomness”.
Fabric of universe is entropy. Entropy is always increasing. Entropy is the
measure of randomness. Thus the randomness and the uncertainty is always
increasing.
The certainty of death completely goes
against the principles on which nature is built. Yet it is the only truth of
the nature.
Is there a reason why death is the
ultimate truth? Is there a reason why everything ceases to exist after Shiva’s
final dance?
Such profound questions can be answered by
a person who faces death every day. Not only every day, but every hour, in
every breath he takes.
Primo Levi answers the question. The
puzzle regarding certainty of death. I think every one can have a different
perspective at it. I wanted to know what a prisoner in a Nazi death camp
thought about certainty of death.
“Our ever-insufficient knowledge of the
future opposes it: and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and and in
the other, uncertainty of the following day. The certainty of death opposes it:
for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief”
- Survival at Auschwitz ,Primo Levi
Had we not have the certainty of death,
the unfathomable abyss of future would have made the concept of HOPE
non-existent.
It was hope which kept these prisoners
alive.
On deeper thinking, you will realize that suicide
boils down to an extreme situation where the choice is between acceptance and
rejection. Between acceptance and revolt.
Suicide is often viewed as an act of revolt.
Hardly so. Analyze the lives of people who are termed
as “revolutionaries”. Mahatma Gandhi, Che, Martin Luther King. These are
fighters. Different methods but common belief. They all refused to accept their
present situation and fought for a better life for their people. How hard is
this to figure for people who commit suicide in the name of a “revolt”/anger
against something?
Revolt is an act of rejection.A rejection to confine
yourself to shackles of your present. Suicide means giving up on your future
turning a blind eye towards tremendous possibilities which future holds.
“Suicide is
the most extreme form of acceptance”-
Albert Camus.
Besides the certainty of death, the life events are
random and absurd. There is no way to predict. One should never fail to realize
the absurd. Never deny the reality of randomism. Never fail to accept the fact
that besides death, everything else is temporary.
Naked truths are devoid of reason. It’s
independent of interpretation. Beauty, in that sense-is a lie. What is beauty
to one could be obnoxious to other. Maybe just “nice”. Interpretation however,
changed. One might need to give a reason why he finds this thing beautiful, or
why he finds it obnoxious.
Death required no explanation. What is dead
to one is dead to every body else. No reason. No interpretation. To attach a
reason to it is an imbecile and foolish at audacious levels.
Thus, its completely justified if one
reason’s his actions. “ I am leaving this town to find a new job in a new city”.
Fine.
“Ill die because she left me “ “Ill
die because I lost my job”
This.
This is plain stupid.
You attached a reason to something which didn't need it.
“Really?” I hear you ask. What about those
who do die for a reason. What about soldiers?
Soldiers die protecting borders. Here’s the
thing about borders though: they change. What represents two different
countries could be two states of the same nation tomorrow. I was talking to my
friend Mann who told me the horrible times our soldiers faced in Sri Lanka. At
least 1500 Indian soldiers died in Sri Lanka. All in the name of historical
relations we have had with our neighbor. Then one day politics changed, India
votes against Sri Lanka in UN. All sacrifices and deaths forgotten.
In any case, martyrs cannot be compared to
people who commit suicide out of depression. These are people who kept they
duty, faith and belief above their concern for death.
So it boils down to complete acceptance or
rejection.
A complete acceptance of trying times as
in the case of the Chinese couple. A slap on the future.
Or it can be ultimate rejection as in the
case of Primo Levi. He kept his hope alive in Auschwitz and came out of it.
Suicide is not like waking up from a
nightmare. It’s like accepting that this nightmare is your reality and never
waking up.
Image Courtesy: weheartit.com
This blog is being submitted in Indian School of Business-Idiya for a change contest.Wish me luck
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