When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

(For those not in my philosophy class, we read a portion of Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and the entirety of The Fall.)

Being someone that is rather introspective, suicide is something I have thought of often; indeed I’ve been wrestling with it for most of my adult life. Of course this really isn’t much of a surprise, since if one ponders life long enough, thinking of suicide is impossible to avoid. This isn’t to say that I've constantly held a gun to my temple, daring myself to pull the trigger. But rather, I have constantly turned it over in my mind, examining it, exploring its every crevice. It has been absolutely necessary to my development and my understanding of my place in the world.

But why you might ask.

Because it has been through my struggle with the idea suicide, that I have been able to make any sense of life. While I don’t think I’ve come to any realizations that will shake the foundations of the world (shaking my own foundations has been enough), I have decided that the ultimate point of life is life itself. While life seems incredibly absurd, the fact that it is so only makes it more apparent that it is necessary. If it wasn’t necessary, why all the fuss? Here I turn to Goethe:

"Finished. A silly word. Why finished, I'd like to know. Finished and sheer nothingness all one and the same. What use is this interminable creating, this dragging creation into uncreation again? Finished. What does it point to? It might as well never have been at all. And yet it goes its round as if it was something. Give me eternal emptiness every time."

This is exactly the idea I speak of. If life has no purpose, then why go on at all? 

However this doesn’t mean we are capable of determining any meaning. It is obvious that the world has rules that we must abide. We cannot put our arm through a concrete wall without breaking it, or jump off a cliff and expect to continue on. There are very clear rules we must follow. It follows that our reasoning should have its own set of limitations (though it may have a spectrum within this limitation). 

I would like to put forth an idea for you to toy with: that if we were able to determine some ultimate meaning, it would ultimately make life meaningless. What I mean is that if there were some absolute meaning, why would there be any variety or diversity, why so many different experiences? It is only through leaving things open-ended that we get the kind of diverse and wonderful universe that we came out of. (Another fun thing to think about is that we didn’t come into this world, we came out of it, like a wave comes out of the ocean. Just as a wave is something that whole ocean is doing, you are something that whole universe is doing.)

So why commit suicide? I don't think I'd attempt to argue that suicide is never necessary, however it seems like it should only be used as a last resort. Too many kill themselves because of some unhappiness with an experience that is transitory. If they had had but a little a more patience, they (likely) would have witnessed the passing of their tragedy and life would have become enjoyable again. 

Life is always in flux, it is a constant ebb and flow. There is nothing static. Hell, even some scientists think that the physical constants of the universe might not actually be constants, just precise approximations that fluctuate ever so slightly.

So what do we do? I say we live. Fully, ecstatically. We must drink from the marrow of life and stop looking forward or backward. We must let go of what we imagine the world to be, and accept it for it is. All over the world people value freedom; what freedom is greater than letting go?

I'd like to share some words from a wise man named Albert Einstein:

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

If we truly are part of the whole, then you do not end with your death, only this experience does. And if suicide is meant to be an escape from this interminable creating, this dragging creation into uncreation again, and it doesn’t achieve that goal, you’ve accomplished nothing.

So unless your suffering has no conceivable end in sight, why bother?