I was recently reading a report saying that suicide rathes for 10-to-24-year-olds have increased by 8% between 2003 and 2004, making it the largest single-year increase in 15 years.
I don’t know why are they only now releasing data that should have been available in 2005 at the latest, but I’m finding something else even more ironic: “Researchers looked at trends during the 15-year period by gender, age group and suicide method. It did not examine reasons for the changes in suicide rates.” Typical, don’t care about the cause, only look at the effects.
And yet again I’m wondering why is it so bad? Why don’t they think a person has the right to make that choice about their own life? Why is there all this push for preventing suicide itself instead of, say, I don’t know, perhaps working on changing society so less people will find their lives not worth living anymore?
But, of course, that would make sense, so the powers that be could never do such a thing as that. Plus that psychologists and drug companies would lose all the money they make off “treating” depressed people now, let’s not forget about that!
All this only says one thing, that they’re doing all they can to make people learn to accept what they want them to accept, not only stopping them from fighting back and changing what they don’t like, but even taking away their right to get away from it all!
They’re talking about noticing the warning signs of suicidal thoughts and taking action against them, which generally is what they call “increasing a person’s coping abilities”… I call it making them submit to the world, make them accept that shit will happen most of the time and there’s nothing they can do about it, that they’re not worth anything but that’s fine since nobody wants them to be worth anything anyway, that their feelings are only there to be trampled upon and that they’d be better off to just block them all anyway, become mindless drones happily doing what’s expected on them, crawling along a path to nowhere.
I still find life itself as having a large negative value, making it require plenty of good things to happen to make it worth living. And I don’t have much hope of that in today’s world… But, since I’m still here, I have to think about all the others who think of it but don’t do it, either because they’re afraid to or because they still have that tiny shred of hope that things might yet get better, and therefore keep on suffering and crawling along on that path to nowhere…
Don’t know about you, but I think that anything that makes a person want to kill themselves is extremely important, at least for that person at that time. Barging into their lives and forcing them to set that problem aside and keep going, or just scaring them into keeping going somehow, whether or not they set the problem aside, means forcing them to change their priorities. Basically, it says “I don’t care what the problem is, it’s wrong to be bothered by it, and if you are bothered by it then you’re wrong, it doesn’t matter and if it defines you then I guess you don’t matter either, but I need you to stick around anyway so you won’t mess up my success record”.
Basically, suicides mean that society failed in front of the individual. That’s probably their worst problem with it, more than their pockets, their pride or the false sense of usefulness. They can’t tolerate the evidence that society is wrong, that it fails, that it needs changing. So they “doctor the evidence”, which in this case are the people who are hit hardest by society’s flaws, the people who probably could do the most for the world if they’d only have the opportunity to do it in their own way.
This is interesting enough to make my mind make connections. Fair trade condoms… I’ve been asking people for a long time, especially when they complained about their income, if they’d pay more for the products of a company that would pay all of it’s employees fairly. Then, after the nearly inevitable “no”, I’d ask what gives them the right to ask for more pay for themselves in that case.
I still say condoms shouldn’t be needed, though, since there are plenty of effective methods of contraception that don’t block direct contact just where I think it’s most important for the two bodies to be in direct contact and only having sex with people you know well enough to say they don’t pose a risk of STDs should take care of that issue as well, probably even better than a condom since the condom doesn’t stop all possible means of getting infected.
Also the idea of a “feminine design” seems idiotic to me, not to mention that it looks like it uses more packaging than for a regular box of condoms, which obviously does no good for the environment. I think connecting the fair trade concept with such an intimate product would have done well enough in itself and marketing ploys only lower it’s impact, plus that this design might actually make men less likely to buy them, which could hurt their sales more than the potential increased appeal for women could boost them.
Yet, it’s an interesting idea in itself and good to get one thinking…
I’m looking at a small piece of news from a newspaper from here. It says that Microsoft demands more investments from Asian governments in order to curb piracy and admits that constant effort over a few decades will be needed before any significant progress will be made. It also says that the programs that resulted in the reduction of software piracy in Vietnam and China lately have cost Microsoft billions of dollars per year.
In that case, how about simply dropping them? Won’t you be better off by just letting them be instead of spending billions of dollars in order to stop people from doing something that doesn’t cost you anything? Because, despite what corporations say, that’s the truth about piracy: It doesn’t cause losses! If somehow prevented from using pirated copies anymore, if both their personal income and the quality of the specific piece of software stays about the same, the vast majority of those who resort to piracy now still would not buy the program, they just won’t use it anymore either.
Or, if they insist on spending so much, how about investing in sustainable development of said economies and fair trade programs, so people will end up affording to purchase all the software they use first, and only then worry about those who would still choose not to? Or just invest those funds into improving your programs, so they’ll be worth the price you ask for them in the first place…
When a new person visits this place and doesn’t leave after viewing a single page, most often they check out the “Who the Heck Is Cavalary?” page. There was basically nothing there so far, yet nobody asked anything. I find that quite odd, you’re interested enough to look but not enough to ask when you don’t find what you’re looking for… Anyway, I’ve put in name, birth date and location there now, so you’ll have something at least.
On another note, it’s finally starting to make sense to write in English. Until about a month ago, 70% of visits were from Romania. Since then, that is down to 35%. Ok, so most are just interested in the “Dark Passion Play” lyrics, but some of them take a look around afterwards and a few even seem to stick around.
Getting more visits makes me feel pretty inadequate, that I should be writing more about what I actually meant to write about when I started this blog, and do it better when I do write something…
Last night, a little before 4 AM, the streetlights behind the building here turned off. I opened the window, turned off the computer monitor and just stood there, basking in the darkness and looking at the stars. Being able to do this has certainly become a rare commodity in cities…
It was so nice, dark and quiet. Only a few lit windows in the whole area and only crickets piercing the stillness. Somebody else noticed the darkness and also opened the window and stood there, looking out. A red light was visible through another window, can’t know whether somebody was working with film or having a romantic night, but it looked nice nevertheless.
Since today seems to be the last nice day in a while and I certainly intend to stick to going out at least once per week if at all possible, this provided another pleasantly eerie moment. That was after getting past the required problems that naturally have to appear when I’m struggling to convince myself to do something, to make it even harder, of course.
I woke up and meant to go shave, but noticed that the hot water was cold yet again. Also noticed, a bit too late, that it was brownish. Too late because I meant to brush my teeth and rinsed my mouth with it once before looking. It didn’t draw my attention earlier since it was flowing normally, didn’t burst out, and wasn’t too brown, just a tint. Still, that mouthful was enough for me to be stuck with a nasty metallic taste in my mouth now, despite attempts to get rid of it afterwards.
Anyway, after a few “nice” mental messages towards dad for staying on the city grid instead of getting a heating system, I gave up on trying to shave then and tried again later, after the problem was apparently solved. Then, after pacing around the room for about another hour, trying to talk myself into it, I went out.
Went to the usual park and started feeling sorry that I didn’t bring The Urth of the New Sun with me the moment I entered it, because it was the perfect time to just sit down on a bench and read. The place was almost deserted. A few couples here and there, a few old people in a couple of other places, a couple of joggers, a few girls on roller skates and not a single child that I could see! At times I was looking around wondering if I haven’t been transported in another world, because the place has been rather crowded and full of kids every time I went there so far.
Oh yes, also saw a group of trees that I’d like to have in front of my window. The canopy was impenetrable, but the branches were teeming with birds. I still wouldn’t be able to see the stars, but at least it’d be dark and something would separate me from the world.
But here I am, back inside again… And realizing that I’ve been writing a lot of personal entries lately…
