A Merry Aside on Suicide

When someone is bemoaning existence, saying he wishes he weren't alive, often a bystander will say: Well if you hate life so much, why don't you just kill yourself?

No matter how depressed or ill you are, the process of going from living to not living is not a comfortable one. Wishing you were kaput isn't the same as having the resolve to do something about it. Plenty of people wish to be thin, but they don't wish to go through the pain of diet and exercise. Thus, they remain plump. Getting slim is rough, and I'd say the evidence shows that the desire for self-preservation (staying alive) trumps even the desire to be slim (though listening to the song "Stayin' Alive" will make killing yourself much easier).

To off yourself, you have to first overcome the psychological hurdle, which means coming to grips with ceasing to exist. Much harder than ABC, 123, or falling off a log. Yes, the universe existed for billions of years before you came along, but you had the good fortune of not being alive to know that you didn't exist. Still with me? Great. Once you are alive and conscious of it, the tendency is to try to keep living no matter what. Life has always been brutal, and not so long ago, it was a helluva lot more brutal than it is today; much more disease, much less food, much more death all around you meaning much more grief. Yet suicide remained uncommon. Obviously, the self-preservation instinct is almost indomitable, so it takes a humongous amount of will to push past it.   

Assuming you can put all that aside long to enough plan an exit, you then have to face the disagreeable nuts and bolts of suicide. Talk about irksome. You have to picture yourself with your neck in the noose, hopping off the chair and being jerkily choked to death (Ask anyone who's been jerkily strangled with a rope if they enjoyed it. Rarely will they say "I can take it or leave it."). And you have to picture the potential horror of hanging there and suddenly wishing you could get your legs back to the chair. Imagine trying and failing...it is enough to turn a goth chick into a cheerleader. 

Jumping off a building...also a tall order. You have to overcome the mental image of a long, agonizing freefall (picture a rollercoaster made in the Soviet Union), followed by the possibility of not immediately dying upon smacking the pavement. Jumping off the high dive scares most people. Imagine jumping from a much greater height, only in this scenario you're landing on sidewalk rather than water, and in doing so you won't be impressing any hot chicks who might sleep with you later. Advantage: high dive.

Even something which is presumed to be painless (or "instant") like a gunshot to the head requires actually putting gun to temple and having to swallow your steadfast self-preservation instinct. To do so means trying to comprehend oblivion, which is pretty much beyond comprehension. If you try to bypass this horrible inner debate by rushing the gun to your head, you may misfire and merely end up with an eyebrow trim.

Knowing how hardwired we are to try to survive at all costs, it is quite simplistic to just say, "Hey man, if you're unhappy, why don't you kill yourself then?" And considering how grisly these various suicide scenarios are, it is no wonder that most people take the easy way out (i.e., continue to live).

How to prevent bad suicide prevention

When an adult expresses depressed or suicidal sentiments, a common reply is: “But look at what you have; a roof over your head, food in the fridge. Millions of people would love to switch places with you.”

This is a sub-useless response. Let’s talk it out:

So SUICIDE GUY has all his material needs met, putting him in a much better position than many others, yet despite this he is still stricken with a sadness profound enough to cancel his self-preservation instinct...soooo how is this an argument for his continuing to live? If having everything he needs to survive in the face of widespread famine and squalor ain’t enough to shock him into life-loving gratitude, what else could he reasonably expect will enter his life to make him feel better? And what happens if SUICIDE GUY loses that roof and well-stocked fridge? And since when does a guilt trip make someone feel better about himself?

When a teen expresses depressed or suicidal sentiments, a common reply is: “C’mon, these are the best years of your life.”

Hard to imagine a more pro-suicide retort. If these are the best years of DEPRESSED TEEN’s life, and these years have left him suicidal, how is that an incentive to keep living? Effectively what you’re saying is: These years that have driven you to consider self-murder are the best you’ll ever have, and when they end in a few short years, according to the stats you’re looking at at least 60 more years that will make you nostalgic for this period that has given you a deathwish.

I’m not a medical professional, but it seems to me that if you encounter someone who is depressed/suicidal, it is best to leave these canned answers on the shelf. They actually strengthen the suicide's case.



All is not lost if you follow me Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne

Why This Economic Dip Will Be Even Worse

Many financial commentators are assuring me that despite all the bad economic news, the US economy should not double-dip, and that we will not see a replay of 2008. I agree that it won't be a replay, because I think it is going to be worse.

A few reasons:

Last time the crisis was in the banks, who ultimately wound up getting backstopped by governments. Now those government "safe havens" are the cause of the crisis. Who is going to backstop the backstops?

Going into 2008, the decoupling story was still a bright spot for the bulls. Many thought that while the developed world might slow down, emerging markets like India, China, and Brazil were going to boom enough to keep the rest of the world sputtering along. Now India and China are dealing with serious inflation hazards, and EM stock markets like Brazil's are performing much worse than those in the developed world. Unless "To the moon, Alice" suddenly becomes a viable export model, there aren't going to be any markets frothy enough to tug the rest of the world into prosperity.

In 2008 there was still room for interest rate cuts, and central banks all sliced with abandon. Have you seen today's interest rates? There ain't much to cut.

What about "quantitative easing?" There may be less appetite for it now, but that doesn't mean central bankers are suddenly going to abandon their diet of counterproductive actions. We probably will see more QE measures, but all they will do is further stoke the corosive inflation that already has people wincing. That extra inflation will leave folks with even less money to spend on, well, anything.

And let's not ignore the psychological component. In 2008, many were caught flat-footed because events they had previously thought to be impossible (US home prices falling, major banks going under) happened again and again. 2008 wasn't that long ago, so those "impossible" shocks are still fresh in people's minds. Consequently, they will act much more urgently to avoid getting buried in the collateral damage of the impossible. This means capital will flee more rapidly at early signs of trouble, making the shockwaves even worse. This might explain why European stock markets have sold off so brutally at every fresh bearish peep out of Greece, Spain, and the like.

Perhaps it is time to coin a new investment phrase: The end is your friend!



Collapse with me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne