He basically announced his ‘permanent-rest’ via twitter. So sad but grounding for all of us to remember that there are things way more important past the marvelous inventions we can code or make.
For learning purposes, anyone knows what was his major cause of frustration?
Suicide is very personal, should be treated as an extremely complex issue that its uniqueness for each cannot be expressed in details correct enough to respect the regretted.
I know you just want to know if any major points could stand out to bring some understanding, and they are probably some, but it's important to treat it as a might be relavant, but always small, piece of a the vastness of one's mind can be.
I would have agreed fully with you for most of my life, but having now lost half a dozen friends to suicide, I think we're making a big mistake by not talking about it honestly and openly. Not only is it much harder for the friends/loved ones who are left in the dark about what happened, but it misses opportunities for learning and understanding. Most people who have never been ready to kill themselves have no idea what it's like, the hopelessness, the weariness, and worst of all the lies your mind tells you.
I do insist on being classy and respectful, particularly for the family members, but I wish as a society we would talk openly and honestly about these issues instead of high opacity implications.
> I do insist on being classy and respectful, particularly for the family members, but I wish as a society we would talk openly and honestly about these issues instead of high opacity implications.
Yes, I did not want to mean that the right way was silent mourning. I merely wanted to express that full understanding is not achievable, and that the truth is lost with the life, and lost forever. To me, everything said with this idea kept in mind is respectful, and from there talking works.
>Suicide is very personal, should be treated as an extremely complex issue that its uniqueness for each cannot be expressed in details correct enough to respect the regretted.
Can you elaborate on what you mean here? Are you saying that every suicide is unique and out of respect for the dead we should not try to understand it?
It's mostly about the relationship about the understanding than the understanding itself. You can try to understand, but not believe you understand, the deceased will never be there to correct you if you're wrong.
Frustration is just a word. It's maybe not the optimal word for it, but we understand what's meant: the situations on the inside and outside that made him consider such a choice.
Keep in mind many people on HN (incl. me) don't even speak English as a first language.
I do think it's interesting that it's so widely stigmatised (illegal even) though: like we've collectively decided life is meaningful and must be lived to the best of your ability, deciding there's nothing in it for you and you don't want to take part is not (with very niche old-age && ill-health exception) allowed.
Weird, when you step back and think about it isn't it? If you're agnostic/atheist at least.
I would speculate that the societal stigmatisation of suicide is a form of social "guard-rails" that might keep someone from stepping to far in the wrong direction during a moment of weakness.
It might be the last thing that saves them when they are not in their right mind and have lost all hope and perspective. In that moment anything that can be done to protect them should be done because there is always hope, even if you can't see it right now.
One of the things I often hear said about people who attempt suicide but fail by jumping is that they have a moment of clarity on the way down that their problems are not a big deal and are solvable except the current one of imminent death.
Not sure if this is true in all cases and what the outcome for these people is after time passes, do they still feel depressed or are things better for them.
But, if that is the general experience, then it makes sense for society to stigmatize the action.
I guess it's the same as with the death penalty: it's a decision that's very permanent and irrevocable. Someone may be convinced that "there's nothing in it for them" now, but are you really sure they would feel the same in a few months or a few years?
I suspect that is very seldom the case. Depression is cyclical. There are moments of joy and content. I think it speaks to a loss of hope in society at large.
There are moments of joy and content, but for myself I always personally know that hell is just over the hill. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy things. But I suppose there comes a time when some people just get too tired of it all. I also personally believe the act of taking your own life is utterly courageous… every cell in our body’s are designed to want to live. Pushing fast fear of the ultimate unknown is something else. And anyone out there who says crap like “the cowards way out” is an absolute pea brain in my eyes.
Being downvoted for these points is a clear (and uncomfortable for mentally healthy people to digest) example of why depressed people often feel it’s pointless to speak and be honest about their thoughts. Because they feel no one wants to hear them.
There is a fine line between being honest with your thoughts and indulging in unhelpful solutions as anything other than unhelpful. Life is not about living on the terms you choose. You inherit the terms under which you are to live. Rejecting those terms is indeed cowardly. Being able to adapt is what takes courage. (And I say this with full awareness of my own limitations as well.)
Calling someone a coward is insulting regardless. Let's not put that label on folks near the edge - you have no idea what they dealing with. It might bring you to your knees far earlier.
Absolutely 100%. We hear it all the time though. And imagine how hurtful it is for families and friends to hear that drivel about a loved one. Makes my blood boil.
It's not about putting a label on anyone. It's about making sure it doesn't inadvertently become a model for others. No counselor or friend is going to be there when they are alone and make the decision.
To some people simply living for some time requires more courage than any reasonable person would muster in a lifetime. Reprimanding them for not having even more courage seems a sad thing to say.
Proposing suicide as a solution. It is quite cowardly, because you are rejecting the terms life handed you. Courage is persisting through to finding a way of living on those terms.
In absolutely no way on earth did I propose suicide as a solution - what vile nonsense. Maybe read something properly before throwing a damaging allegation like that. Pfft.
I’m done commenting any more on this topic with you.
> There are moments of joy and content, but for myself I always personally know that hell is just over the hill.
Is the belief that "hell is just over the hill" rational? Or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe that belief is in itself one of the major causes of that "hell"–and, despite thinking that you "know" that, not genuine knowledge at all, rather a harmful delusion
You can’t give a depressed person hope though. And even if you could box hope up, how would you make it last? At the end of the day, depression is a chemical imbalance and hope isn’t going realistically fix that - maybe that depression is a result of brain injury, like a nasty bump on the head that has permanently damaged the way the brain works… Depression is a long way off being solved.
Depression is a state with causes. Remove the things that make it persist and it will go. If you’re talking about a chemical imbalance that itself is abnormal and could only truly respond to treatment like drugs (e.g. like schizophrenia and lithium) then I agree, but most depressed people have “normal” brains that are in a currently unhealthy state, so I’ll avoid arguing exceptional cases.
I’m also not suggesting that hope cures depression, I’m suggesting that hope prevents suicide. Basically, why kill yourself if there is hope? Depressed people aren’t being rational but then neither are optimistic people, each with their own distortions of reality. However, they’re not delusional, you might call it a state of hyper-realisticness that actually distorts through the destruction of possible branches in reasoning. An optimist thinks “it’ll be sunny tomorrow“, a depressed person thinks “it won’t be sunny again, ever”. Neither requires reasoning for their position snd can easily dismiss any given, but it can be done. Reason with an optimist and you will deflate them and they will react badly, usually we avoid this because it has little upside. Reason with a
depressed person and they will also react badly but the upside is that it may sow the seeds of their remission.
Regardless of all their defences, distortions and dismissals, if they can be convinced there’s hope it will keep depression from being suicidal.
In fact, I think it is a very harmful myth. When people become falsely convinced that their depression is due to a "chemical imbalance", it encourages them to see their current mental state as something fixed and unchangeable – and then that false perspective helps to sustain and worsen their depression
Even that suggests that living life is some kind of 'default' or 'obviously correct' state, that anything else has to supply sufficient reason to deviate from. Why should that be so, really? Just because we are born into it?
To be pithy: why must death justify itself, but not life?
Well put. I often see people who are not depressed who use optimism towards depressed people, because optimism will cancel out an ephemeral despondency as it doesn’t really require evidence or reasoning beyond “it’ll get better”. Depression is too well bunkered in for something like that.
Optimism provides a useful safeguard against depression in the first place. It's called the optimism bias. If people think too realistically (or, perhaps it's better to say glumly because it may still not be realistic even if more realistic) without regular doses of optimism that realism may turn into longer periods of despondency, and we know where that leads.
As I recall, around 80% of people have the optimism bias. The rest are prone to depression.
Murdering your self is still murder. There are other victims besides the person committing it. The reason why it is a taboo subject is because it is contagious in a way. When the idea is broadcast at large, there is an increasing likelihood that people on the edge will follow through. Suicide should not be romanticized or indulged.
I wouldn't say I agree but can understand the point of view.
I think a lot of people would feel differently about someone who takes his own life because of a terminal illness such as cancer, where it's seen as a way to end up in the same place while avoiding a lot of pain and suffering. "Death with dignity." So why don't we feel the same way about someone with painful, debilitating depression? We don't really understand how to cure depression. We have some drugs that help some people, analagous to what narcotics do for people in physical pain. But we don't understand how to cure depression, as we don't understand how to cure cancer. Maybe someday we will, but what does that do for the people suffering today, who just want a way out?
This comment exemplifies a pattern of rather useless comments that I've seen a lot of online recently, that are analogous to "contradiction - stating the opposing case with little or no evidence" on the argument pyramid: when a commentator X states a thing, commentator Y states that that thing isn't true, with no supporting evidence, but more importantly no additional value or elaboration added - just saying "that's wrong" without explaining why, or saying what is actually the case.
For instance, here, value would be added by stating what are the actual causes of suicide - or even adding research that supports your point even if you don't want to talk about what the actual causes are.
For learning purposes, anyone knows what was his major cause of frustration?