Choosing Death – I
I “threatened” you a long time ago with talking about choosing death. I finally got to writing about that.
I’m just wondering why can’t you choose that without being condemned? You can’t choose the time and place of your birth or your family. Why couldn’t you at least choose when you’ll die then? Especially when you have a reason for it.
I read an essay written by someone who pointed out that on one hand suicide is frowned upon only in the western world and on the other hand there are exceptions even here. When a soldier throws himself on a grenade or stays behind to “buy”, at the cost of his life, a few extra minutes for the others who were trying to escape, his suicide isn’t frowned upon. The conclusion was that suicide becomes something bad when the reason is selfish. Well, that doesn’t seem too fair to me. After all, everyone needs a reason to live. If that reason disappears and isn’t replaced in a very short time by another, anyone should be able to choose that. Also, if someone has a disease that will result in death anyway and would rather know when and how that death will come, instead of waiting, suffering and spending the last moments in a hospital.
And this leads me to euthanasia. It’s only legal in Netherlands, from what I know. Why is that? Animals are put to sleep since it’s said it’s the humane thing to do, not to be let to suffer. On the other hand, humans are left to suffer until the last moment, saying that they have the right to live and no person can take that away, they can only choose to not have CPR done to them if their vitals fail, but not to be killed when things become unbearable. Make up your minds! As things stand now, it seems we must show pity towards animals but they don’t have the right to live, while people have the right to live but we mustn’t show pity towards them. Doesn’t really make sense…
I’ll go quickly through the religious issue linked to this subject. If God would want you to keep living and would get involved in what happens in this world, He’d make sure you wouldn’t commit suicide. After all, suicide is not a decision taken in a moment and the methods used are not 100% certain to work since at that moment you can’t be too exact in what you do, so there would be time. When it comes to euthanasia it’s not even an issue, since if He’d want you to live He’d have made sure that you wouldn’t be dying already. Anyway, He doesn’t interfere directly, it seems stupid to think He does. Maybe when you ask for help, if you know how and what to ask for, He might give you some chances, but He doesn’t play The Sims with humankind. Even if, absurdly, He might want to do that and wouldn’t be bored of it by now, I’m sure there are much more interesting civilisations than ours somewhere in the Universe.
This was the very short version… And since it was short, I’ll say something else in the end. A big “what if?”
If you find out that you have a disease that will kill you in a few months, what do you do? Risk an uncertain cure, hoping you’ll be healed, but knowing that if you won’t be healed you’ll die without using those last few months to do the things that you wanted to do before death, or use those last few months to the max, doing everything you wanted to do before death, but giving up your chance to live longer, in case that treatment would have worked?
Too morbid? Why? I don’t think so…
Come on! Didn’t read the other 50 pages you wrote on the topic, so give me a brake… It doesn’t seem too fair to you if a selfish person is condemned for his actions? Now… why is that? You condemn the selfish persons how doesn’t care for the environment! Why would a suicide be forgiven? He gave up! He didn’t care about anything! He took the easy way out! He left us behind! He just might of took something with him that we needed. Like some hope, or someones good days. Maybe he left behind some garbage that I cannot get rid of and he is messing up with my life.
And I’m not so sure that suicide is a well founded decision. I bet many just do it in a moment of despair, which in some cases can be overcome. Unfortunately there is no coming back! And if you do! Well that’s another thing you failed.
And: nope! I’m not saying anything about people with fatal diseases or about euthanasia. That’s something else!
August 5, 2008 @ 6:09 PM
Because it’s your life and since you didn’t choose when it started you might as well choose when it ends! Also, dying means you don’t use resources anymore. Now when you’re that down it usually means you’re not up to being productive, so you’re not producing your fair share, so for the world at large it’s better if you just vanish.
As for being a well founded decision, that’s irrelevant. Sometimes it is and people should have every right to make it. And when it isn’t… Well, you are responsible for your own life, if you choose to end it for a silly reason that’s your problem. Besides, there are a lot of things that I think people shouldn’t get over.
August 5, 2008 @ 6:34 PM
Aha! Am I pushing you to suicide if I’m asking you if you are productive?
I see you have very strong feelings about a man’s rights over this own life, a lots of expectations about what others should do and think, but not so many about yourself. Everything you do and think is excusable and impossible to change.
Is there any way of following when you respond to my pointless comments other than checking from time to time all pages I’ve been to? I’m not that smart! And I keep forgetting what I’m saying around here!
August 5, 2008 @ 9:11 PM
If I had the guts to do it I wouldn’t be here now. But seeing as I don’t, I’ll still admire those who do for good reason and really not give a fuck about those who do it for stupid reasons. Natural selection. (Besides, who am I to say what’s a good reason and what isn’t? It’s their life and their call.)
Not expectations, I expect the worst but hope for the best. So high hopes… I don’t meet them. Neither does anyone else. It’s something to strive for, so the first thing that matters is to try. The vast majority don’t. You’re a good example.
Well, try entering the comments feed in a RSS reader in case you have any, no idea if it works. Or I could put some comments plugin back but I don’t want to. Or we could just move this to e-mail, it’s pointless enough for me not to care whether it’s public or not (I usually don’t want to argue in private, especially with people I don’t already know well, better have it all out in the open as evidence in case words “happen” to get twisted around later).
August 5, 2008 @ 11:04 PM