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Good reason to live?
Actually one of my friends (who is also some kind of a communist) wants to commit suicide. It's not an impulsive decision - he has thought it through. I've advised him not to, of course, but he's asking me for a "good reason to live". I never thought I'd have trouble thinking of one but it turns out that it really is pretty hard. What would you do if you were in my place and had to convince him? In other words, answer the following question - Why should one live?
I can't really think of any good reason...
What about that he'll make his friends and family sad by commiting suicide? Sorry I couldn't be of more help
Segui il tuo corso e lascia dir le genti.
Socialism resides entirely in the revolutionary negation of the capitalist ENTERPRISE, not in granting the enterprise to the factory workers.
- Bordiga
Probably more than anything he needs to see a therapist and a doctor for anti depressants. When you're super depressed you just have a weird "logic" and way of seeing the world that's impervious to the kind of advice/support your friends give you.
But more generally I dunno... Not so long ago I was miserable and suicidal with I thought no hope or chance to have a better life. Now I have many good friends and other things in my life and feel pretty content most of the time. I've had many great experiences... You just never know what life is going to bring and it's worth it to see what happens.
He has to see a psychologist. As when people come here saying they, or a friend has medical issues, even if there was a doctor on this forum, it's no substitute for professional help. If it's serious, then get serious help.
With that disclaimer out of the way, the issue of "why should one live" has been dealt with extensively in Philosophy. You or your friend should consider reading "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus. It discusses whether or not suicide is a philosophically justified reaction to the realisation that ones own life is completely meaningless. He concludes that while (as far as we know) life has no objective meaning, suicide doesn't actually provide meaning, the act is, in the universal sense, equally meaningless Saturn won't change its orbit and it wont delay the decay of the Suns core. If you did chose to comit suicide it's no more objectively important than any other action you might choose to undertake, or as he posed the question "should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee" ...nor does it solve the problem of meaninglessness.
Once people realise that they exist in a cold and uncaring universe with no meaning, they will be tempted to either retreat to a fantasy land or commit suicide. Instead of these options; Camus advocated actively choosing to live in this absurd situation, as an act of human rebellion against universe.
He's also my avatar.
Last edited by Forward Union; 1st May 2013 at 20:12.
"How you cling to your purity, young man! How afraid you are to soil your hands! All right, stay pure! What good will it do? Why did you join us? Purity is an idea for a yogi or a monk. You intellectuals and Bourgeois anarchists use it as a pretext for doing nothing. To do nothing, to remain motionless, arms at your sides, wearing kids gloves. Well, I have dirty hands. Right up to the elbows. I've plunged them in the filth and blood. But what do you hope? Do you think you'll govern innocently?"-Jean-Paul Sartre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus
OR
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Nietzsc.../dp/0195306775
Then Maybe go see one of these guys because they have all the answers *sponsored by Pfizer*
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You can't go to great demonstrations after you are dead!
Exactly. He's giving the exact same reason for suicide. When life is as meaningless as death, then what's the point in living? I can personally understand that it's a good thing to live but what I'm saying is that it's hard to intellectually convince someone that there's a good reason to live because there probably isn't.
Why would demonstrations matter/have any meaning after you're dead?
I'm not sure there's anything you can do other than be a good friend, and be with him as often as possible.
If he wants to commit suicide, he's probably going to do it, unfortunately.
What's the point in killing yourself? If you don't care whether you live or die why not LIVE. As in really LIVE. As in burn the candle from both ends. Passion. Love. Violence. Just typing this makes me want to go outside and live it up. Meet new people. Get into weird situations. Put on a wig. Have sex with the refrigerator. Death is most likely a black nothing of emptiness for eternity. That sounds rather boring, rather permanent and we'll all be there in time. No need to rush the inevitable. Yep. Time to get of the internet for the day. I'm going to go outside into the city.
But I don't want him to. He has potential to do interesting things. He writes well and has read many many books. The problem is that he's convinced that there's no reason for him to live. He's frustrated with the world (like a lot of us are) but he has taken that to an extreme and become too pessimistic and depressed.
He would say that if there's no good reason to live and there's no good reason to die then what's the difference? Why bother living?
I don't really think that's your call to make, though.
It would be wonderful if he'd see a psychologist and try treatment, but it's not something I think you can force on him, either. Have you suggested it to him? What has he said?
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This is all, of course, my opinion, and there are others who undoubtedly have better.
he's probably got some reasons of his own to keep living, but it's hard to remember them when you're depressed. that said, myth of sysiphus is a good suggestion if he's philosophically inclined, as is much of the existentialist stuff (not kafka, for god's sake!) hesse's damien also kept me from the brink a few times when i was younger, and a good friend of mine decided to wait until after high school because he read steppenwolf. he's still alive.
this was helpful to me, and it's not bullshit: http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html
just listen if he wants to talk. and if he is a communist, it might help to remind him that a lot of our alienation, self hatred and depression is exacerbated by our historical circumstances, circumstances which cannot remain as they are forever.
have him keep in mind that deep suicidal depression is a result of chemical imbalances. he cannot make informed, logical choices while in that condition. what seems like a philosophical necessity is not so; his mind is conspiring against him (eta: some lines from goethe's iphegenia i read yesterday seem relevant here: "with rare skill you entwine the god's devices and your own wishes neatly into one" and "we seize with eagerness upon a law that serves our passion as an instrument").
besides, if life is not worth living, why bother killing himself? eventually we all will die, and then that's that. by ending his life early he loses the chance that reasons for living will appear later in life.
Life, no matter how bad it can get, is always better than the alternative. Oblivion might sound nice, what with there being no more pain at all, but it also means that one will no longer exist to appreciate that fact. Life can get better, but death is always the same.
That's my take on it, at least. It might not be convincing to anyone seriously contemplating suicide, because I'm not a counsellor or therapist.
Also, what about the people left behind? Don't they matter?
The Human Progress Group
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains - Karl Marx
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller
The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Check out my speculative fiction project: NOVA MUNDI
There is no "reason" to live. Not beyond our biological reason for existence, which is to reproduce.
And I know this because I've contemplated suicide at least 5 dozen times. Just never got around to it. It's kind of like going to the dentist...you just wanna put it off a few more days. That's pretty much the only thing that has kept me here (and some recent good news that I'm moving to a new city).
To the person who asked what's the point in being dead: you don't suffer. The whole problem with being alive is that you're going to suffer. And we cannot trivialize someone else's suffering, because we have no idea what effect something as small as a bad grade on a report card might have on their psychology. If that causes them to suffer, it's their business. We don't have a right to impose life on them. Death can liberate someone from suffering.
I personally think people should be allowed to choose when it's their time to go. However, I completely understand wanting your friend to stay around. That's all you can do. Talk to him and tell him how much you would miss him. Perhaps even tell him that life is a tricky thing and his entire situation could turn around within the next 5 minutes. You just never know. If you would've told me 2 or 3 months ago I'd be on the verge of moving out-of-state, I would've probably looked at you as if you were crazy.
Just be a friend. That's all you can do.
It also "liberates" them from any further chances of happiness or fulfilment. Life has no inherent meaning or purpose, but that just means that one is free to make meaning and purpose for oneself, rather than being shoehorned into some predetermined box.
The Human Progress Group
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains - Karl Marx
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller
The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Check out my speculative fiction project: NOVA MUNDI
One of the less helpful things to do in such a depressing situation is to think about this question philosophically. When I had major depression, it was caused of course mainly by frustration of my real life experience - especially my miserably failed love life - but it got worse by thinking too much. Abstracting oneself through profound, idealistic thinking was absolutely the worst for me. When your friend raises the question "what reason do I have to live?", don't try to anwer with a philosophical truth. The goal is to make him enjoy normal everyday life again. Just one superficial passion, somehting that you look forward to can make the difference. For example, I am currently rediscovering my passion for football which I completely lost during my "deep, depressed teen"-phase. The simple anticipation of watching Inter play every week distracted me from my pessimism. It's not that the pessimism goes away but it doesn't take over your life that way. Politics can be even better, revolutionary politics above all.
Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. - V.I. Lenin
I'm back online already. lol. Why? Because I wanted to come back online. Next I may want to eat a sandwich. Turkey with avocado. I enjoy turkey sandwiches. I like laying in bed with women smoking cigarettes. The national forest in Santa Cruz recharges my batteries. The zen Garden in Golden Gate park. Pizza. Beer. Riding a bicycle very fast downhill like a kamikaze pilot. Sometimes work can be fulfilling- sometimes. Socializing can be a double edged sword, functions with friends are usually better than worse though. Everyone has their own little weird worlds we live in. Different meaning is given to life by different people, there's no fundamental root meaning. My theory is do whatever I want to do in so far as I can afford it and so long as it doesn't harm another person. Sometimes I play with those two lines though, as in, drinking too much or putting myself into minor debt.
Other people chose the path of negation. This would be a more Eastern philosophy take on the subject. Meditation, inner peace etc but if you have a job that makes you miserable, a bad family life and rough times with friends it makes life hard to deal with. You can't put all your eggs into one basket because eventually one of those things are going to cause heartache. No one really has any concrete universal answers though. Beware of gurus. Don't even listen to me. People need to find their own meaning.
That doesn't really make any sense though, as life is meaningless according to his own equation. Death is meaningless, too. So how is living life actually preferential to embracing death? It sounds to me like they're both part of the same void, so it really doesn't matter.
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
In general...
First try to have your friend put off the decision. If you wanna commit suicide, fine, but can you put it off for a week, a month, two months?
I don't agree that life is meaningless. The world may be meaningless but the idea is to impose one's own meaning on it.
Try something that takes your friend out of his preoccupation with himself.He is a communist? That's certainly something to live for right there.To be very blunt, your friend is being selfish and terribly narccistic. He wants to ice himself with all the oppression and shit going on in the world? So few people are conscious class fighters. Your friend regards himself as one, yet he will abdicate his responsibility and let down his class?
I know this sounds harsh but sometimes its what's needed to break the downward spiral.
I don't know your friend's situation. I won't say, "things get better" because very often they don't.He may feel mistreated by society.In a case like this the desire for revenge can be a very healthy emotion. He may be able to focus his anger outward to the class enemy.If he is politically aware he has something to contribute.
You may want to find the suicide hotline in your area. There are people specifically trained to deal with situations like that.
A therapist can be helpful, esp. one with a philosophical bent.
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget
Arundhati Roy
Lenina Rosenweg is a glorious beacon of light
i cant give you that many good reasons to live, sex maybe if someone has a partner for it. anyway, i think if the situation that brought your friend to this conclusion wont change it will probally be very hard to convince your friend otherwise.
only thing i can think of is to try another approach and im speaking of guilt. depression tend to leave you with very selfcentered thoughts, i know. and suicide is also extremly selfish. now i dont know you friend but i guess s/he has a lovein careing family and loveing careing friends all of whom would be very hurt by the suicide. besides, there i no need to rush a suicide, since well you can do it every day.
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
