this has been one hell of a day

Tuesday is about to roll over and make room for Wednesday. In terms of job-related stress, today was nothing. But I couldn't help noticing the convergence of three overlapping negativities: suicide by jumping off a building, breakups with Significant Others, and people going nuts.

Shawn Matthews killed himself by leaping off the top of his apartment building in China. Matt B., in an email about the KrayzeeGrrrl, noted that a guy had recently jumped off a building in Kangnam last week. As with Shawn's and KrayzeeGrrrl's situations, this guy had suffered a breakup. Perhaps Matt is right and KrayzeeGrrrl has made a conscious or unconscious decision to retreat from the behavioral norm. At least she's not suicidal (or so I believe; I was obviously wrong about Shawn, whom I considered relentlessly optimistic).

My advice to people who might be contemplating suicide:

Don't kill yourself, asshole.

There's a good, practical reason for this: suicide is messy, especially if you're throwing yourself off a goddamn building. Maybe you think I'm being humorous, but no-- I'm again in a reflective mood this evening, and like Jake of Mei Shi (China Vlog), I am keenly and angrily aware that the consequences of suicide fall not just on oneself but on those left behind.

As I said, suicide is messy. Consider that before you off yourself. Someone will have to scrape you up off the ground. Or find your purple, bloated body in the living room or bedroom or bathroom or wherever the hell you are, hanged or drugged. Or find your body, your shotgun, and what's left of your head inside a garage or toolshed, then spend time scouring the walls and floor (and maybe even the ceiling) to get rid of all the skull fragments and pieces of brain. Unless you drown yourself in the ocean or blow yourself up with dynamite, trust me-- you'll be leaving a mess for somebody else to clean up. And if your body is halfway intact given the method of suicide you choose, keep in mind that your sphincters will let go at death and it won't just be blood and brains and bone that people will have to deal with.

Suicide isn't just physically messy; it's psychologically messy. In the wake of your death will be a lot of people wondering what they must have done wrong that you should feel so alienated, so hopeless. And they'll never know the real reasons. Even if you leave a suicide note, your departure from this plane of existence won't prevent people from engaging in morbid speculation about all the would-haves and could-haves. Your suicide is likely to cause a ripple of depression in others, and because death is irrevocable, your decease will forever be a scar in their lives. Now, thanks to you, they will have the dubious honor of trying to figure out how to reconcile themselves to a loved one's death-- an exercise that, by rights, should be unnecessary in the course of normal human existence.

If you refuse to think about these things, or if you consider them and then dismiss them, understand that you're a selfish, selfish fuckhead. Suicide happens when people feel-- rationally or irrationally-- that their personal horizon, the scope of their freedom, has narrowed so that only one course of action remains in view. In almost all cases, this conclusion is wrong. Things change. Darkness gives way to dawn. The stream of life flows ever onward, so why not remain a part of it for as long as you can? Don't force the rest of us to scrape up and cart away your dead ass.


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