I am cleaning up a years old mess and mulling over abstracted inner philosophy as one does. So why do other people care if someone wants to check out, punch their own card, start life retirement. Why would there ever be a stigma or law against such a thing, (other than profiteering from misery). In my attempt to reason why some worthwhile human might find it offensive, independent of outside influences like religion, the only thing I can think of is the idea, “to give up on one’s self implies giving up on everyone else,” like perhaps the person that takes offense does so out of their desire to help but lacks an effective means or opportunity. True/not true, is there some facet I am neglecting? What do you think?
There’s a lot of reasons why people will respond negatively to someone deciding to excise themselves from reality, and part of that is because there are a lot of different types of people, but we’re almost all of us inherently social creatures.
Some people may feel sad that the person who ceased to be didn’t think to reach out to them, or didn’t clarify what was going on. This often comes with a strong feeling of guilt, a feeling that the former individual was let down by their friends who ‘should have seen the signs’. The signs can however take many forms, and be easy to miss.
Some people may feel that life is so amazing and wondrous that’s a straight up insult to discard it. Anyone doing so is almost invalidating their optimism, and it feels like a personal attack.
Yet other people, much like the first group, will feel like they were indeed given up on, like they weren’t given the chance to support the no longer present individual. A slightly different perspective that can feel like disrespect.
Finally, there are people who don’t want to acknowledge the option even exists, and anyone who uses it is making it more real. We want it to be so last-resort, that it’s never considered an option.
At the end of the day though, it’s always a permanent solution to a temporary problem, no matter how big. If you’re really considering it, you’ve spoken to the helplines, tried to get the support of all your friends and you’re out of ideas, sell all your shit, hitchhike 3 states over, and spend 3 months trying to live there. You literally have nothing to lose, and it’s worth trying every fix before making what is literally the last decision you will ever make.
You can change your situation all you like, but it’s not going to change who you are (especially as this big brother world enabled by technology makes it virtually impossible to escape your past). If you’ve reached a point where you have virtually nothing left to motivate you to move forward (especially if it has been that way for a long time), then the significant effort it would take to try to save you is unlikely to be worth it (never mind finding anyone who would actually care enough to devote themselves to such a task) - particularly with an outcome that is FAR from certain to be a positive one.
Some people just reach a point of being basically devoid of hope, and therefore pretty much dead inside.
Don’t ask me how I know.