How would you like to die?

Aeva117 wrote:Suicide. I don't care if I'm 30 and already on my deathbed or 99 and just ready to be done. I want it to be my choice.

That kind of thinking seems to be commonplace here, and it really confuses me. If you'd be choosing to die, wouldn't it mean that you'd be miserable? Would you ever want to be miserable?

I really wonder if it's people just parroting something that other people have said many times before, or if it's really the way people here feel about it and they really mean it. If it's the latter, then I just don't get it. Death has no appeal.

zeno wrote:

Aeva117 wrote:Suicide. I don't care if I'm 30 and already on my deathbed or 99 and just ready to be done. I want it to be my choice.

That kind of thinking seems to be commonplace here, and it really confuses me. If you'd be choosing to die, wouldn't it mean that you'd be miserable? Would you ever want to be miserable?

I really wonder if it's people just parroting something that other people have said many times before, or if it's really the way people here feel about it and they really mean it. If it's the latter, then I just don't get it. Death has no appeal.

I can't speak for others, but I've been insistent on dying by suicide for as long as I can remember, and certainly since the age of 10 or so. I've had an Advance Directive since I was 18, and have also verbally discussed it with my parents. The only way I can make it through life is knowing that it will end. Knowing that I can end it. Autonomy is incredibly important to me, I don't react well when others try to control me. I will not be passive when it comes to my brain and body. If I'm suffering and there is no hope for improvement, I'm not going to endure the pain while I wait until my body shuts down on its own. If I feel I've lived my life, I'm not going to be driven to total insanity by forcing myself to keep enduring the endless monotony.

I'm not afraid of death, mine or anyone elses. I don't value life enough to see death as a bad thing. It's not a depression thing, it's a logical thing. We're all essentially biding our time til we die, why not speed the process up if you're not enjoying the intervening years?

Aeva117 wrote:It's not a depression thing, it's a logical thing. We're all essentially biding our time til we die, why not speed the process up if you're not enjoying the intervening years?

That's the thing. That sounds to me like the opposite of logic, activeness and autonomy. It just sounds horribly inefficient. Half-assing both the problem of living and the problem of dying, and solving neither.

But you agree with me that a lucid person would only choose to die as a reaction to misery, right? Do you expect to inevitably be miserable enough to choose to die before dying of more natural causes?

I'd like to die peacefully and naturally.
I understand that depressed and desperate people want to commit suicide because they just want to end their pain.

Aeva117 wrote:

zeno wrote:

Aeva117 wrote:Suicide. I don't care if I'm 30 and already on my deathbed or 99 and just ready to be done. I want it to be my choice.

That kind of thinking seems to be commonplace here, and it really confuses me. If you'd be choosing to die, wouldn't it mean that you'd be miserable? Would you ever want to be miserable?

I really wonder if it's people just parroting something that other people have said many times before, or if it's really the way people here feel about it and they really mean it. If it's the latter, then I just don't get it. Death has no appeal.

I can't speak for others, but I've been insistent on dying by suicide for as long as I can remember, and certainly since the age of 10 or so. I've had an Advance Directive since I was 18, and have also verbally discussed it with my parents. The only way I can make it through life is knowing that it will end. Knowing that I can end it. Autonomy is incredibly important to me, I don't react well when others try to control me. I will not be passive when it comes to my brain and body. If I'm suffering and there is no hope for improvement, I'm not going to endure the pain while I wait until my body shuts down on its own. If I feel I've lived my life, I'm not going to be driven to total insanity by forcing myself to keep enduring the endless monotony.

I'm not afraid of death, mine or anyone elses. I don't value life enough to see death as a bad thing. It's not a depression thing, it's a logical thing. We're all essentially biding our time til we die, why not speed the process up if you're not enjoying the intervening years?

In this case I agree with Aeva: it isn't a matter of depression or weakness every time. For me, I'm not depressed, I have no suicidal thoughts, I consider me as a balanced, self-assured and calm person; but suicide is one of the infinite human possibilities, it's a right, and I can understand the choice of a person who commits this act after specific situations or meditations. Of course, it's wrong and hateful to talk about suicide in a romantic and stereotyped manner, but this is not the subject here. It'll surely come the moment for me too, when I'll start to ponder seriously this possibility, but I know I will be free from pathetic arguments, and I'll come to the most rational decision possible. Progress and secularism are even that: from a time where life and death of all were decided arbitrarily by despotic and restricted powers, to modernity, where people can establish by themselves if their lives are worth living or not, and even to ask to die and paying for it. Put in these words it seems that the world is going mad, but I find it fair, as long as it is a decision made with the brain and not with the heart: I can't stand who commits suicide after a break up, but I understand very well who does it after being diagnosed of an incurable disease and tried everything without results, and I'd do the same if I was in his shoes.

zeno wrote:That's the thing. That sounds to me like the opposite of logic, activeness and autonomy. It just sounds horribly inefficient. Half-assing both the problem of living and the problem of dying, and solving neither.

But you agree with me that a lucid person would only choose to die as a reaction to misery, right? Do you expect to inevitably be miserable enough to choose to die before dying of more natural causes?

You're right. But who decides where to put this threshold of misery? What is miserable and unbearable for you it's not for me or others. And don't forget that the right to dispose freely of your body is the assumption of autonomy.

naps wrote:
I don't want to subject myself to the horrors of modern medicine should I get sick.

Why are you scared by modern medicine? Aren't you an endorser of those so-called alternative cures?

zeno wrote:But you agree with me that a lucid person would only choose to die as a reaction to misery, right? Do you expect to inevitably be miserable enough to choose to die before dying of more natural causes?

No, I don't agree. There are plenty of reasons people choose to die.

Yes, I do expect to be miserable enough to want to end my life. I have a lot of physical health issues, and my main condition is degenerative and extremely painful. I may also just become so bored with life that I can't stand it anymore (the monotony of it drives me crazy).

I believe that suicidal fantasies are a way to relieve life-related stress. It might make one feel like more in control of what is going to happen. Some people who say they will do it maybe just think about it to feel better. Others might be gathering up the courage to do it.

I think that overdosing on heroin and shooting oneself would be some of the less alluring options among all the ways to do it. Resuscitated survivors have usually found the experience of dying of heroin overdose unpleasant, and with drugs the risk of failing and surviving with some serious permanent damage is always there.
Shooting is messy and your body will look horrible afterwards, or at least worse than if you were intact. You don't want pictures of your brainless body to spread on the internet.
They say that freezing to death feels good after you stop feeling cold. You don't need any equipment and you can do it somewhere isolated. Oh and posting that picture of Jack Torrance is unnecessary.

undergroundman wrote:And don't forget that the right to dispose freely of your body is the assumption of autonomy.

But think about it: a right is something granted to you by other people. Autonomy is not needing a right to be granted to you, but having the ability to just do what you decide to instead.

Yes. I once had an argument with somebody whose case was that rights don't exist because we do not have autonomy over whether those rights are given (important verb, autonomy implies 'take') with guarantee. It's a silly metric by which to argue an existence of a custom or a law. They went further to argue that law doesn't exist since it can be broken and evaded. But the convention and the agreement and the punishment all do exist, and under circumstances where all criteria for being punished for not abiding by whatever law is met then it will be executed. I'm not sure how it can ever reasonably be refuted. I think their argument is really that it doesn't exist outside of human thought and therefore doesn't exist (since it doesn't have an 'objective' existence outside of our minds). A deeper philosophical point but still one I disagree with.

under ice wrote:It might make one feel like more in control of what is going to happen.

100% a control thing for me. It's not about reaching a point of desperation where I feel like there's no other choice. It's about continually evaluating all my options and making a conscious and informed decision about how and if I want to proceed.