BioT3ch
Member
- Sep 19, 2026
- 11
Preface: Suicide is a serious subject. What I write here represents only my own views. I have nihilistic tendencies, and I write this simply as a memorial to my suffering.
On the one hand, healthy and happy people believe that the longer one lives, the better; those who contemplate suicide may feel the opposite. What impact can any of our individual actions possibly have a hundred years from now? The events we consider meaningful, the actions of great people—are they not, in the end, simply ways of allowing other people to experience more happiness and enjoyment? If the very act of experiencing pleasure is meaningless, then what is left that can be called sacred and inviolable? Looking back, perhaps my mind had already fallen into the abyss of nihilism long ago. That is why I lie awake all night. That is why my hair has turned white.
Why can we not simply die? A healthy person believes that as long as one is alive, and as long as one's continued existence still benefits oneself, other people, or one's country, one should never casually give up one's life for some trivial reason. They are able to live happily. They can perceive the beauty of being alive. As long as they remain alive, there will always be something beautiful waiting to be experienced.
Consider a symptom that frequently occurs in people with severe depression: anhedonia. The word comes from the Greek an-, meaning "without," and hēdonē, meaning "pleasure." Among people with anhedonia associated with major depressive disorder or schizophrenia, activity in the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum may be reduced. Of course, even if I tell you this, you probably will not remember it. Just as the word itself suggests, everything in life that ordinary people regard as beautiful seems to be covered by a filter in my eyes. I can hardly feel pleasure from anything. It is as though the heavens and the earth have changed their appearance, as though the entire world has become a single color—dark, gray, and heavy.
Things I once loved have become exhausting even to pick up again. I cannot relax in the quiet of a forest. I cannot feel the warmth of sunlight falling upon my body. I cannot obtain a sense of status or connection with other people through conversation. I cannot feel pleasure from ejaculation. As material conditions become sufficiently developed and we no longer have to worry about food and basic survival, nihilism can easily grow out of material abundance.
In ancient times, people had religion. They believed they would go to heaven or be reincarnated after death. In modern times, people have devoted themselves to their nation through war and nation-building, receiving a sense of fulfillment in return. When a person can no longer obtain any sense of fulfillment, suffering comes knocking.
Sometimes I would rather develop cancer, or some other serious illness, so that I would no longer have to struggle helplessly and would have a legitimate reason to die. Later, I discovered that I was not the only person who had such thoughts. Many people have fantasized about dying in this way.
I often feel that the world is excessively harsh toward people with depression. Mental illness is rarely regarded as something severe enough to justify dying. Yet when someone actually becomes seriously ill, they may become frightened of death precisely because they are suffering so much. That is biological; there is no simply willing it away. Even if I have already realized that the meaninglessness of death does not necessarily mean the absence of suffering, my body may still fear death.
Why are people afraid of death? Because they are afraid of no longer being able to experience pleasure; they are afraid of nothingness. Unable to perceive nothingness, they invent a heaven and a god who continues to exist and perceive things after death, entrusting their spirits to these ideas and deceiving themselves into believing that nothingness does not really exist, that happiness will continue. Here, "happiness" does not mean indulgent or hedonistic pleasure. It means the emotional happiness of being alive.
Healthy people believe that the cognition of mentally ill people is distorted, and therefore they do not grant them the right to die. They believe they must intervene, lest healthy people see or hear about such deaths and become distressed themselves. They believe that human life is inherently good because life itself gives us an infinite number of possibilities in the future. Therefore, even if one's present life is gray and bleak, as long as one remains alive, there is still hope.
Others believe that a person's virtue is manifested precisely in their ability to endure suffering. Even when life presents us with enormous challenges that may tempt us to give it up, if we consider our moral obligations, we will not choose to abandon our lives.
Precisely because healthy people can feel and perceive the beauty of life, they try—or even compel—others not to give up theirs. Doing so gives them a sense of accomplishment: "I did another good deed today." Objectively speaking, that is indeed what is happening. For anyone who wants to give up their life, it seems that we can use this argument to explain the goodness of life to them.
And this is where the paradox emerges: the person who wants to die may no longer have the strength to maintain the belief that other people cherish life. Even if everyone's perception of the world is subjective, suffering itself is objectively real. What is "objective" is not necessarily that important to the human mind.
It is commonly believed that once someone develops a mental illness, they can never truly recover. One psychologist once said that he did not dare claim that he had completely cured even a single patient. Moreover, as long as a mentally ill person remains alive, their suffering may remain for as long as they do—and they may suffer even more because of medication, dependence on medication, or side effects. I sometimes think that if heaven truly exists, then this would be hell.
Others say: refusing existence itself is evil. Birth separates us from death and transforms us from non-existence into an existent, perceivable state. Some take an even more radical position, saying, "This is a mission given to us by God; those who commit suicide will go to hell."
People who hold such views can be extremely dogmatic and self-centered, unable, as healthy people, to empathize with the suffering of others. They believe that life itself is a good, and that the sensations, desires, activities, thoughts, and other components of life allow us to experience the infinite possibilities of the future. Even if one's present life appears extraordinarily painful and unbearable to oneself or to others, as long as we remain alive, there is still the possibility that we may experience a happy and meaningful life in the future.
But this is a paradox. Once the past has become the past, does the suffering of the past cease to have been suffering? Is suffering not objectively real?
When people develop terminal illnesses, some turn to gods and Buddhas; when they develop cancer, some drink useless traditional medicines, as though suffering were something that could simply be ignored—as though life were supposed to consist only of happiness, while suffering were an objectively existing thing that should nevertheless not be acknowledged.
It is somewhat like the Soviet Union, where people deliberately ignored serious systemic problems that already existed, eventually contributing to its collapse. It is as though ignoring something could save everything, as though avoidance could buy redemption.
Yet suffering is one of the few things in this world that is extremely difficult to escape. No matter how much one has enjoyed in the past, no matter what achievements one has made, without a powerful belief, suffering cannot simply be ignored. How could you ignore the glass of water sitting in front of you? It is simply there. It exists objectively.
People bought indulgences from the Church as though they could escape the misery of their past. Students can skip class and go to an internet café to escape academic pressure. Yet people with mental illness may be unable to escape their suffering at all. What about those who are born with disabilities? Can they escape?
There are also people who morally blackmail others by invoking the suffering of their families. They utilitarianly argue that one person's death will cause their family more suffering than the total amount of suffering experienced by the dying person, and therefore that suicide is a sin. Yet they fail to consider that the suicidal person may also feel guilt, and fail to ask what that person themselves is experiencing.
All of this seems to suggest that calmness and joy are rights that every one of us deserves. But how ironic is that to someone who is suffering? Why must they be entitled to them simply because others are? I knew someone who developed bone cancer at the age of sixteen, and whose cancer had already metastasized. Did that person have the right to escape?
The contradiction between healthy people and suicidal people may never be reconciled, because fundamentally both are trying to make themselves feel at peace.
Suicide may affect political stability, cause grief to other people, and violate conventional morality and ethics. Therefore, some people declare that "human beings simply do not have the right to commit suicide." What is ironic is that human beings do possess the ability to take their own lives. Some regard this as a "natural right," something innate and not ultimately bound by moral, legal, or religious doctrines. If the "I" is useless not only to others but also to itself, then Rousseau believed that the "I" should have the right to relinquish its own life; the "I" should have the freedom to give up its own existence.
If a person is unable to escape their suffering because of illness or a major life event, and is unable to correctly determine whether continuing to live might allow them to "experience happiness again" or whether it will merely be a meaningless continuation of suffering—if they misjudge the value of the future—then in such circumstances, should suicide or voluntary euthanasia be permitted?
The more deeply one loves and values the happiness of life, the more difficult it may become to empathize with someone trapped in suffering.
Simply discussing this subject is itself painful. Healthy people have little inclination to study another person's suffering. (Would you really want to become a philosopher? All this does is make suffering proliferate.) Relying solely on the categories of "right" and "wrong" to judge death is, in my view, a desecration of life.
When my psychological suffering became unbearable, I underwent surgery. As I inhaled the anesthetic gas and gradually lost consciousness, I seemed to truly experience what nothingness felt like—even though nothingness cannot actually be perceived. But for me, as long as something is not suffering, I already consider it happiness. The threshold at which my nervous system registers pleasure has been set so high that even this is enough to satisfy me.
Afterward, I began imagining how wonderful it would have been if I had died on the operating table and never awakened. At the time, it genuinely felt as though I had gone to heaven. I had obtained something that a complex, highly perceptive living organism could never obtain in quite the same way: a sense of tranquility.
Struggling in the wilderness to obtain food, climbing over other people's heads in society to advance oneself—this feeling of being at peace with oneself can be brief, but it can also be happy.
Whenever I think about death, I feel that all occupations in this world are equal. A manual laborer's work being enough to support themselves, or even their family, is already something worthy of respect. I envy them.
In the eyes of vulgar people, they may be considered to be "not doing well" and therefore objects of contempt. Yet they can still have rich inner worlds. They can create the culture they love, enjoy every breath, raise their cats, lazily bask in the sun, enjoy the sensation of writing, save money to buy their own computers, play, socialize with friends, wake up, and experience the good feeling of beginning another day.
My body cannot even support me in doing physical labor anymore. I have no choice. Therefore, I can only comfort myself by telling myself that death is not frightening, even though biologically I still perceive it as frightening.
People who attempt suicide with poisons often go through a period of regret. Perhaps this is built into us, designed for the continuation of the human species and the transmission of human DNA. Perhaps all living organisms are like this.
Death, as the final stage of life, should not be regarded as something base or degrading. It is a normal natural stage, a natural expression of emotion, and a normal manifestation of desire. There is nothing inherently shameful about it.
Yet some people like to "persuade" mentally ill people not to die. Doing so can give them a sense of superiority. They may know perfectly well that it will not make the patient feel any better, yet it allows them to demonstrate the greatness of their own humanity. This too is a normal human emotional need, and there is no need to mock it.
As a mentally ill person myself, I have also encouraged others to cherish life. But I hate people who preach from a position of superiority.
And for some people, the final message they post before suicide is itself a plea telling others not to die. Human beings are social animals. Perhaps this is what people mean by our "underlying code."
The more I think about it, the more I feel that human beings are not so different from running machines. I do not even feel that humans are superior to animals that merely know how to hunt, mate, and raise their young. Sometimes I even envy them.
We have eaten the fruit of knowledge, achieved material abundance—and yet why am I still suffering? I do not understand.
For ordinary people, the greater our desires are, and the further they exceed our abilities, the more painful and unhappy we feel. But if we restrict our desires to what lies within our abilities, then we are free, and therefore happy.
Suffering itself may also be a distorted form of desire. To feel suffering is, in a sense, to experience the desire to feel happiness. Ultimately, it is still hormones and electrical signals being transmitted. I always feel that we are machines made of flesh and blood. At the end of the day, our emotions are neural responses regulated by hormones. Any hormone or drug may potentially alter our emotions, and even our personalities.
When the cerebral cortex is damaged by hypoxia or external trauma, a person may experience depersonalization, lose consciousness and enter a vegetative state, or develop cognitive confusion. Ultimately, these too are simply the results produced by the machine we call the brain.
Whenever I think about this, I experience a feeling of resentment, even despair.
What exactly is a human being? What is the difference between us and machines?
Perhaps this question, like death itself, is simply "meaningless" to discuss. Thinking about it may cause one to fall into the abyss of nihilism.
Once I think this way, the magic of what we once called "the great emotions of humanity" seems to disappear. Realizing this makes me suffer even more.
But perhaps this is because my cognition has become distorted by the fact that "I encounter these things every day." Realizing this also makes me suffer more.
I wanted to use philosophy to heal my suffering. But philosophy never pulled me out of nihilism. The obscurity of its language only made me more uneasy.
I am simply an ordinary person.
There are also people who voluntarily give up their lives for the sake of a belief—for example, soldiers who would rather die than surrender for the sake of their country, the martyr Socrates, or believers who commit collective suicide.
Their sense of value can be so powerful that they are able to resist the biological fear of death and pain. Such people can become objects of envy for those who contemplate suicide. They can exchange their lives for a sense of recognition. Even if no one ever knows what they did, the mere possibility that they might be recognized is enough to give their deaths value.
As someone suffering from depression, I sometimes envy people who die in wartime, because their deaths can be recognized and given meaning, whereas mine would have no value beyond making my family cry.
Of course, this too may be a distortion of value caused by my mental illness. But once one is dead, perhaps none of it matters anymore.
Sometimes I think that Mother Earth, having given birth to us, would not make us continue to suffer after death. Therefore, death is the best form of escape. It may be "shameful," but it is useful.
Time may be the medicine that heals wounds. But when faced with an incurable disease, when misfortune and suffering grow stronger and stronger until they become unbearable, when we are no longer able to live a life with dignity, perhaps we should have the right to choose how our lives end, and healthy people should respond with understanding.
Mother Earth is so egalitarian. Everyone dies. Everyone eventually becomes part of other forms of life.
There is a God in this world. He loves every one of us. No matter what an individual becomes, there is always love happening somewhere in the world.
Even if suffering exists, even if there is ultimately no way to escape suffering, we should still experience each day of being alive as fully as we can.
On the one hand, healthy and happy people believe that the longer one lives, the better; those who contemplate suicide may feel the opposite. What impact can any of our individual actions possibly have a hundred years from now? The events we consider meaningful, the actions of great people—are they not, in the end, simply ways of allowing other people to experience more happiness and enjoyment? If the very act of experiencing pleasure is meaningless, then what is left that can be called sacred and inviolable? Looking back, perhaps my mind had already fallen into the abyss of nihilism long ago. That is why I lie awake all night. That is why my hair has turned white.
Why can we not simply die? A healthy person believes that as long as one is alive, and as long as one's continued existence still benefits oneself, other people, or one's country, one should never casually give up one's life for some trivial reason. They are able to live happily. They can perceive the beauty of being alive. As long as they remain alive, there will always be something beautiful waiting to be experienced.
Consider a symptom that frequently occurs in people with severe depression: anhedonia. The word comes from the Greek an-, meaning "without," and hēdonē, meaning "pleasure." Among people with anhedonia associated with major depressive disorder or schizophrenia, activity in the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum may be reduced. Of course, even if I tell you this, you probably will not remember it. Just as the word itself suggests, everything in life that ordinary people regard as beautiful seems to be covered by a filter in my eyes. I can hardly feel pleasure from anything. It is as though the heavens and the earth have changed their appearance, as though the entire world has become a single color—dark, gray, and heavy.
Things I once loved have become exhausting even to pick up again. I cannot relax in the quiet of a forest. I cannot feel the warmth of sunlight falling upon my body. I cannot obtain a sense of status or connection with other people through conversation. I cannot feel pleasure from ejaculation. As material conditions become sufficiently developed and we no longer have to worry about food and basic survival, nihilism can easily grow out of material abundance.
In ancient times, people had religion. They believed they would go to heaven or be reincarnated after death. In modern times, people have devoted themselves to their nation through war and nation-building, receiving a sense of fulfillment in return. When a person can no longer obtain any sense of fulfillment, suffering comes knocking.
Sometimes I would rather develop cancer, or some other serious illness, so that I would no longer have to struggle helplessly and would have a legitimate reason to die. Later, I discovered that I was not the only person who had such thoughts. Many people have fantasized about dying in this way.
I often feel that the world is excessively harsh toward people with depression. Mental illness is rarely regarded as something severe enough to justify dying. Yet when someone actually becomes seriously ill, they may become frightened of death precisely because they are suffering so much. That is biological; there is no simply willing it away. Even if I have already realized that the meaninglessness of death does not necessarily mean the absence of suffering, my body may still fear death.
Why are people afraid of death? Because they are afraid of no longer being able to experience pleasure; they are afraid of nothingness. Unable to perceive nothingness, they invent a heaven and a god who continues to exist and perceive things after death, entrusting their spirits to these ideas and deceiving themselves into believing that nothingness does not really exist, that happiness will continue. Here, "happiness" does not mean indulgent or hedonistic pleasure. It means the emotional happiness of being alive.
Healthy people believe that the cognition of mentally ill people is distorted, and therefore they do not grant them the right to die. They believe they must intervene, lest healthy people see or hear about such deaths and become distressed themselves. They believe that human life is inherently good because life itself gives us an infinite number of possibilities in the future. Therefore, even if one's present life is gray and bleak, as long as one remains alive, there is still hope.
Others believe that a person's virtue is manifested precisely in their ability to endure suffering. Even when life presents us with enormous challenges that may tempt us to give it up, if we consider our moral obligations, we will not choose to abandon our lives.
Precisely because healthy people can feel and perceive the beauty of life, they try—or even compel—others not to give up theirs. Doing so gives them a sense of accomplishment: "I did another good deed today." Objectively speaking, that is indeed what is happening. For anyone who wants to give up their life, it seems that we can use this argument to explain the goodness of life to them.
And this is where the paradox emerges: the person who wants to die may no longer have the strength to maintain the belief that other people cherish life. Even if everyone's perception of the world is subjective, suffering itself is objectively real. What is "objective" is not necessarily that important to the human mind.
It is commonly believed that once someone develops a mental illness, they can never truly recover. One psychologist once said that he did not dare claim that he had completely cured even a single patient. Moreover, as long as a mentally ill person remains alive, their suffering may remain for as long as they do—and they may suffer even more because of medication, dependence on medication, or side effects. I sometimes think that if heaven truly exists, then this would be hell.
Others say: refusing existence itself is evil. Birth separates us from death and transforms us from non-existence into an existent, perceivable state. Some take an even more radical position, saying, "This is a mission given to us by God; those who commit suicide will go to hell."
People who hold such views can be extremely dogmatic and self-centered, unable, as healthy people, to empathize with the suffering of others. They believe that life itself is a good, and that the sensations, desires, activities, thoughts, and other components of life allow us to experience the infinite possibilities of the future. Even if one's present life appears extraordinarily painful and unbearable to oneself or to others, as long as we remain alive, there is still the possibility that we may experience a happy and meaningful life in the future.
But this is a paradox. Once the past has become the past, does the suffering of the past cease to have been suffering? Is suffering not objectively real?
When people develop terminal illnesses, some turn to gods and Buddhas; when they develop cancer, some drink useless traditional medicines, as though suffering were something that could simply be ignored—as though life were supposed to consist only of happiness, while suffering were an objectively existing thing that should nevertheless not be acknowledged.
It is somewhat like the Soviet Union, where people deliberately ignored serious systemic problems that already existed, eventually contributing to its collapse. It is as though ignoring something could save everything, as though avoidance could buy redemption.
Yet suffering is one of the few things in this world that is extremely difficult to escape. No matter how much one has enjoyed in the past, no matter what achievements one has made, without a powerful belief, suffering cannot simply be ignored. How could you ignore the glass of water sitting in front of you? It is simply there. It exists objectively.
People bought indulgences from the Church as though they could escape the misery of their past. Students can skip class and go to an internet café to escape academic pressure. Yet people with mental illness may be unable to escape their suffering at all. What about those who are born with disabilities? Can they escape?
There are also people who morally blackmail others by invoking the suffering of their families. They utilitarianly argue that one person's death will cause their family more suffering than the total amount of suffering experienced by the dying person, and therefore that suicide is a sin. Yet they fail to consider that the suicidal person may also feel guilt, and fail to ask what that person themselves is experiencing.
All of this seems to suggest that calmness and joy are rights that every one of us deserves. But how ironic is that to someone who is suffering? Why must they be entitled to them simply because others are? I knew someone who developed bone cancer at the age of sixteen, and whose cancer had already metastasized. Did that person have the right to escape?
The contradiction between healthy people and suicidal people may never be reconciled, because fundamentally both are trying to make themselves feel at peace.
Suicide may affect political stability, cause grief to other people, and violate conventional morality and ethics. Therefore, some people declare that "human beings simply do not have the right to commit suicide." What is ironic is that human beings do possess the ability to take their own lives. Some regard this as a "natural right," something innate and not ultimately bound by moral, legal, or religious doctrines. If the "I" is useless not only to others but also to itself, then Rousseau believed that the "I" should have the right to relinquish its own life; the "I" should have the freedom to give up its own existence.
If a person is unable to escape their suffering because of illness or a major life event, and is unable to correctly determine whether continuing to live might allow them to "experience happiness again" or whether it will merely be a meaningless continuation of suffering—if they misjudge the value of the future—then in such circumstances, should suicide or voluntary euthanasia be permitted?
The more deeply one loves and values the happiness of life, the more difficult it may become to empathize with someone trapped in suffering.
Simply discussing this subject is itself painful. Healthy people have little inclination to study another person's suffering. (Would you really want to become a philosopher? All this does is make suffering proliferate.) Relying solely on the categories of "right" and "wrong" to judge death is, in my view, a desecration of life.
When my psychological suffering became unbearable, I underwent surgery. As I inhaled the anesthetic gas and gradually lost consciousness, I seemed to truly experience what nothingness felt like—even though nothingness cannot actually be perceived. But for me, as long as something is not suffering, I already consider it happiness. The threshold at which my nervous system registers pleasure has been set so high that even this is enough to satisfy me.
Afterward, I began imagining how wonderful it would have been if I had died on the operating table and never awakened. At the time, it genuinely felt as though I had gone to heaven. I had obtained something that a complex, highly perceptive living organism could never obtain in quite the same way: a sense of tranquility.
Struggling in the wilderness to obtain food, climbing over other people's heads in society to advance oneself—this feeling of being at peace with oneself can be brief, but it can also be happy.
Whenever I think about death, I feel that all occupations in this world are equal. A manual laborer's work being enough to support themselves, or even their family, is already something worthy of respect. I envy them.
In the eyes of vulgar people, they may be considered to be "not doing well" and therefore objects of contempt. Yet they can still have rich inner worlds. They can create the culture they love, enjoy every breath, raise their cats, lazily bask in the sun, enjoy the sensation of writing, save money to buy their own computers, play, socialize with friends, wake up, and experience the good feeling of beginning another day.
My body cannot even support me in doing physical labor anymore. I have no choice. Therefore, I can only comfort myself by telling myself that death is not frightening, even though biologically I still perceive it as frightening.
People who attempt suicide with poisons often go through a period of regret. Perhaps this is built into us, designed for the continuation of the human species and the transmission of human DNA. Perhaps all living organisms are like this.
Death, as the final stage of life, should not be regarded as something base or degrading. It is a normal natural stage, a natural expression of emotion, and a normal manifestation of desire. There is nothing inherently shameful about it.
Yet some people like to "persuade" mentally ill people not to die. Doing so can give them a sense of superiority. They may know perfectly well that it will not make the patient feel any better, yet it allows them to demonstrate the greatness of their own humanity. This too is a normal human emotional need, and there is no need to mock it.
As a mentally ill person myself, I have also encouraged others to cherish life. But I hate people who preach from a position of superiority.
And for some people, the final message they post before suicide is itself a plea telling others not to die. Human beings are social animals. Perhaps this is what people mean by our "underlying code."
The more I think about it, the more I feel that human beings are not so different from running machines. I do not even feel that humans are superior to animals that merely know how to hunt, mate, and raise their young. Sometimes I even envy them.
We have eaten the fruit of knowledge, achieved material abundance—and yet why am I still suffering? I do not understand.
For ordinary people, the greater our desires are, and the further they exceed our abilities, the more painful and unhappy we feel. But if we restrict our desires to what lies within our abilities, then we are free, and therefore happy.
Suffering itself may also be a distorted form of desire. To feel suffering is, in a sense, to experience the desire to feel happiness. Ultimately, it is still hormones and electrical signals being transmitted. I always feel that we are machines made of flesh and blood. At the end of the day, our emotions are neural responses regulated by hormones. Any hormone or drug may potentially alter our emotions, and even our personalities.
When the cerebral cortex is damaged by hypoxia or external trauma, a person may experience depersonalization, lose consciousness and enter a vegetative state, or develop cognitive confusion. Ultimately, these too are simply the results produced by the machine we call the brain.
Whenever I think about this, I experience a feeling of resentment, even despair.
What exactly is a human being? What is the difference between us and machines?
Perhaps this question, like death itself, is simply "meaningless" to discuss. Thinking about it may cause one to fall into the abyss of nihilism.
Once I think this way, the magic of what we once called "the great emotions of humanity" seems to disappear. Realizing this makes me suffer even more.
But perhaps this is because my cognition has become distorted by the fact that "I encounter these things every day." Realizing this also makes me suffer more.
I wanted to use philosophy to heal my suffering. But philosophy never pulled me out of nihilism. The obscurity of its language only made me more uneasy.
I am simply an ordinary person.
There are also people who voluntarily give up their lives for the sake of a belief—for example, soldiers who would rather die than surrender for the sake of their country, the martyr Socrates, or believers who commit collective suicide.
Their sense of value can be so powerful that they are able to resist the biological fear of death and pain. Such people can become objects of envy for those who contemplate suicide. They can exchange their lives for a sense of recognition. Even if no one ever knows what they did, the mere possibility that they might be recognized is enough to give their deaths value.
As someone suffering from depression, I sometimes envy people who die in wartime, because their deaths can be recognized and given meaning, whereas mine would have no value beyond making my family cry.
Of course, this too may be a distortion of value caused by my mental illness. But once one is dead, perhaps none of it matters anymore.
Sometimes I think that Mother Earth, having given birth to us, would not make us continue to suffer after death. Therefore, death is the best form of escape. It may be "shameful," but it is useful.
Time may be the medicine that heals wounds. But when faced with an incurable disease, when misfortune and suffering grow stronger and stronger until they become unbearable, when we are no longer able to live a life with dignity, perhaps we should have the right to choose how our lives end, and healthy people should respond with understanding.
Mother Earth is so egalitarian. Everyone dies. Everyone eventually becomes part of other forms of life.
There is a God in this world. He loves every one of us. No matter what an individual becomes, there is always love happening somewhere in the world.
Even if suffering exists, even if there is ultimately no way to escape suffering, we should still experience each day of being alive as fully as we can.
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