After Gary Webb's suicide of which I've written much the past week reminds us that the Holiday season is a time when suicides spike.
One understands the urge to end it it all after a bare 15 minutes in a Xmas-week mall, or a half-hour of holiday music in the car while trapped on an L.A. Freeway.
OK, but seriously, suicide is not just about depression. Take a gander over at my pal's GM's Corner to read his professional take on this matter... a matter which takes tens of thousands of lives per year in this country.
As GM reports, it's more about losing faith in the future. I think at one time or another on most of our lives we come face to face with such challenges.
Losing faith in God will prolly support losing faith in anything -- including faith in the future.
(Just another tidbit reason to support religion.)
Posted by: Tom Grey | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 02:09 AM
So Noble Myth's prevent suicide?
The Choral Director of the Chrystal Cathedral just commited suicide the other day.
Maybe the faith has to be personal... Faith in yourself.
Posted by: Josh Legere | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 10:46 AM
Josh, the faith must be that the future will be better than now. For some, that faith is religious in nature (That is what, besides family love, got me through my crisis). For some, it is faith in self and the sure knowledge that you can "make it" through the dark times. For others, perhaps a belief that today was the bottom and tomorrow will be better.
That others have faith in God doesn't mean it's a "Nobel Myth" it merely means that you don't share the same belief system. Only when we are gone will we know for sure. I'm betting that there is an afterlife, my experiences tell me so, but ultimately, it is faith.
When you boil it down, if it keeps you alive, what difference does it make what worked.
Vaya Con Dios, Amigo.
Posted by: GMRoper | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 11:00 AM
Thanks for the link. I read the stuff your friend recommended, at http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/learning_path_end.htm#table, and it's pretty good stuff.
One thing does strike me. It's that so much of the political analysis coming out of what passes for the Left seems to mirror the cycles that promote depression. You can probably think of examples in the following litany: The overall tendency of society is a return to fascism or feudalism. We can't fight the sweeping power of corporations. We can't look at the victories or noble efforts of the past, because they're always compromised, or half-measures, or co-opted.
Posted by: Brian Siano | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 11:07 AM
Kevin Anderson as a guest for Marc's show?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0810116383/qid=1103601295/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-1386778-2479207?v=glance&s=books
Posted by: steve | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 07:56 PM
GM,
I would agree that if it keeps you alive, it is a good thing. Mormonism got the best man at my wedding off of drugs. So whatever betters your life seems to be ok. That is, unless you end up blowing up a couple of towers for the religion.
I guess in my experiences with suicide, I have never been able to figure out why or what could have prevented it. I just gave up for my own sanity.
But is always seems to be a defining moment in people's lives that were close to those that committed suicide. It is actually an extremely complex and layered event and has a dramatic effect on everyone around the person that does it.
HBO has played a number of really good documentaries on suicide over the years.
J
J
Posted by: Josh Legere | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 08:15 PM
Josh writes, "That is, unless you end up blowing up a couple of towers for the religion."
Well, I'd have to say that was perversion of a religion. And THAT has been around long before christianity, mulim's and judiasm. Sad to say.
But, religion and faith aren't the same thing methinks. Perhaps that fellow at the Crystal Cathedral that committed suicide had religion, and no faith, or being choir director was just a job. I don't know. I do know that folk who have faith, tend to do better in all of life's vicissitudes.
Posted by: GMRoper | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 08:57 PM
My faith in Zeus and the Red Sox has served me well. One of the greatest studies of Suicide, in addition to the one I cited above, by the father of Sociology, Durkheim...who wrote a book called "Suicide", which I like to tell my students is not about suicide.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684836327/qid=1103607064/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/002-1386778-2479207
Posted by: steve | Monday, December 20, 2004 at 09:31 PM
Boy, this is a depressing topic. Nevertheless, it's like the camel in the tent. You can't ignore it.
To address one point, now I realize that Martin Luther King, Jr. was merely a minister of a "Noble Myth." You would have thought that some of the greatest leaders and scientists of our country, who firmly believed in God, could have seen through religion and benefited from the knowledge in this link. Or, is it like the quote "Ask a teenager now while they still know everything."
Anyway, I'm not ashamed to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas, and hope that intolerance will give way to understanding and acceptance.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Posted by: Woody | Tuesday, December 21, 2004 at 07:29 AM
"Merry Christmas" as they say on Fox!
Posted by: Marc Cooper | Tuesday, December 21, 2004 at 11:25 AM
Josh, this from a military chaplin show faith in the midst of carnage.
http://chaplain.blogspot.com/2004/12/mascal.html
Posted by: GMRoper | Tuesday, December 21, 2004 at 07:14 PM
how come EVERYBODY who posted here was using the word "faith" when you obviously are referring to "belief"??? Faith is acting ON a belief, people.. one is a noun and one is a verb, come on, they're even spelled differently
Posted by: Bill | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 12:14 AM