As yet another hero of American literature shuffles off this mortal coil early and by his own hand, I find it fitting to contemplate the question of why. It does not seem likely that the ability to write well would be related to an innate inclination to suicide, and yet so many of America’s prolific writers — as well as the Average Joes — succumb to that ultimate despair that is suicide.
Dante quipped that it seemed unfitting that God should return to a self-murdered soul in the afterlife the body which they deemed so trivial here on Earth, and most Christian denominations — as well as many other religions — would not issue much complaint with Dante’s conjecture.
Many years ago in cultures far away, honor could be reinstated if someone rectified his wrongdoing by committing suicide. Brutus killed himself because of his treason, though most have come to see him as a heroic figure, whose suicide was born of nobility. Samurai once performed hara-kiri, a form of disembowelment, to show loyalty to a dead leader or after great misfortune.
This is not, however, imperial Rome or shogun Japan; we live in America, and despite the “culture of death” — that Muslim extremists and, to a lesser extent, Christian fundamentalists wage war against — there is a semblance that we still respect some forms of life. Unwanted pregnancies are casually terminated and felons who years later can be proven innocent are given lethal injection, and yet with suicide it is different. Friends, family and maybe even the public immediately ask, “What was wrong?”
As technology and industry are streamlined and improved, life would seem to get less hectic, less toilsome and less troubled. This is obviously untrue; with faster and more efficient ways of working, new forms of unstated social codes, and the loss of familiar relationships like the family, life can seem to be more overwhelming and lackluster. We are not the smiling, carefree people with kooky, innocent problems like in a Doris Day movie.
The day we were born, our mothers did not say that life was going to be easy. In many cases life is particularly short, bittersweet and unfair, but this is no excuse for ceasing to be. We must persevere. The age-old anti-abortion defense of “who knows how many Einsteins or Ghandis we have killed” is particularly applicable. No one knows what one can achieve, even in the last stages of life, and it is a tragedy to cut one’s short. As much as a suicide is the fault of the individual, it is also the fault of our society in general.
We treat the chemical imbalance of depression and anxiety with Zoloft or Xanax, and we forget about the person. Too many times, parents lug their children kicking and screaming to therapy, hoping some doctor can solve their problem. That word “their” is misdirected; the parents want their problem, an improperly working child, fixed. A therapist can only say so much when what that child could be looking for only more parental involvement or closer friends.
As much as we hate to hear that theological and optimistic line of “Life is too precious,” as it is entirely cliche, this does not make it any less true. As much as we are inclined to change the channel anytime we hear the phrase, “If you or somebody you know has…,” perhaps we should take it to heart. We are, after all, in this thing together.
As a culture, we have become more and more fixed to the “fact” that life is not going to get any better, if life, as we know it, continues for much longer. The people who know me have rarely called me an optimist, but I do hope for a time when the waves of cynicism and bleakness ebb away from this land. As much as I liked Hunter S. Thompson’s writing, he was wrong. The American dream is not dead. It is hanging around here somewhere. We just have to go looking for it and not be surprised when it turns out it has nothing to do with hitting it rich or looking like the swine on TV. I, for one, would like to be around when we find it.