DAY 05: On Suicide

There are probably many ways I can make this entry funny (or disturbing). It’s apparently called a “hyperbole” if I say, for instance, “So, there was this one time that my shit was so big that the toilet wouldn’t flush. F*ck, I just wanted to die right there by the toilet.” Granted, I don’t say that out loud very often…but I’m sure that if I did, dying would probably be a very plausible option running through my head.

There are also many many many times that I have said the words “I’m going to kill myself” (in an annoyingly whiny voice before tests) or “I’m so f*cking (fill-in-the-blank) that I wish I could die” (for me the word is usually “hungry”).

Sometimes I just stay hours awake lying in bed, wondering what it’d be like to die. And then I have this image of Ophelia, floating in a pool of water with dresses fanned open around her willowed body and hair trailing behind her head like a halo. And then—an image of Edna Pontellier, sinking into the sea as the air slowly fills with the musky scent of pinks. Is there such a thing as a beautiful suicide?

It’s strange because I think of life as something that’s burning, but when I think of death, I see water.

Buddhists see life as a form of suffering. Human life is full of hurt, pain, longing, desire. And while I am far from being a Buddhist, I think that they’re onto something.

Someone once told me that he’d kill himself if he wasn’t a coward. He said he couldn’t bring himself to committing the actual act of killing himself. It was, perhaps, the fear of pain and of the unknown. I thought of it as a strange comment. People are seen as cowards for choosing death over living. But there he was—and here I was—him mouthing the words that he was a coward for choosing life over death.
In Sartre’s No Exit, three people realize that their hell is a small room where the trio is confined together for eternity. One character, Joseph Garcin, cannot help recalling past memories of running away from battle. He constantly needs the assurance of the two other women in the room; he needs them to recognize him as not being a “coward.” It’s interesting that he fails to recognize why he is in hell. In the midst of being caught up in this idea of “cowardice,” he disregards his real sin—driving his wife to commit suicide with cruelty that she took silently.

And how that has to do with anything, I don’t know. And yes, I do realize that this entry was all over the place and quite possibly incoherent to anyone but myself.

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Yesterday was actually an interesting day. My entry was about religion, and that night, a friend persuaded me to go with him to The Gathering—basically a fellowship on Thursday nights at Stamp. I’m actually really glad I went. I feel like I have to start somewhere to get anywhere. Maybe then the rest will come naturally.