Venting Are we selfish cowards?

[coolcow1289]

Lol, you all have the arguments of the perfect egoist: sadness, suffering, "I didn't choose to live"… but seriously, what do you actually know about suffering?
I work in a hospital, and I see real suffering every single day. People living in miserable conditions, people with truly awful life stories. Imagine this: after more than 50 years of work, a stroke costs you your job, leaves you disabled, the state refuses to provide financial support, you have no children, and you are completely alone. Of course that person develops suicidal thoughts and depression, yet nobody really cares because the healthcare system is already overwhelmed.
What have most of us actually lived through at 20 or 30 years old that pushes us to reject and permanently destroy our own bodies? I'm talking about suicide. You talk about suicide, but in the majority of cases, I'm convinced you will never actually do it.
My point is that for some people, sadness becomes a drug. It temporarily allows them to comfort themselves, to escape the world and their responsibilities. You tell yourself that nothing matters anymore, that you're going to disappear, but it's a trap.
I've seen many specialists in my life who gave me different diagnoses: depression, bipolar disorder, and so on. It's comforting to tell yourself you're ill, because it removes responsibility. You would never tell someone with cancer that they are responsible for their cancer.
But despite that, I know I'm not sick, and I believe that's also true for the vast majority of people on this forum.
Hate me, despise me, me—the person going against your ideas and your adolescent clichés. But when you say, "it's my life, it's my choice," you are being deeply selfish, because you only think about your perceived suffering before considering the suffering of others.

I think that suffering can present in different ways, and isn't always tied to how fortunate someone is. And everyone has a different threshold. Some people can handle being that guy who had a stroke. Others will snap over nothing. Suffering can't be quantified like that.

But yes, it is selfish in that you are putting your suffering first.

Lecturing kids in 4th grade about the suicide of a high schooler just seems completely out of place and inappropriate.

Anyway, nobody has the moral high ground here. People will insist that the suicidal suffer without offering any solutions. Or the suicidal will kill themselves and others will suffer for it, assuming anybody cares about them in anything other than a utilitarian way (meaning: great, now I have to hire a replacement employee). It's fair to nobody. What if all this talk of fairness is just a cope? Convincing themselves that they're not going to kill themselves because they're somehow morally superior, and in reality they're the real coward, too afraid to do it?

This false dilemma is the real judgmental trap, imo. Judgmental in both senses of the word. Dog chasing its own tail. The suffering of others is supposed to be more important than mine, so I'm selfish? Do people even listen to themselves? Who is the arbiter of this? Who measures this? Who is the God walking among us? What's the efficacy, the track record of guilt tripping the suicidal—are we flattening the curve yet?

I'm choosing (and struggling) to stay alive until my parents pass. This is my own choice based on personal experiences, not some kind of objective scientific litmus test that I have used to analyze my circumstances. I'm not choosing this so I can come on here and flex about how "noble" I am. That's all bullshit self-aggrandizement. Some people in my shoes would be jumping for joy, others would have already killed themselves, and so far I'm choosing to kill myself after my parents die so that I do not contribute to their suffering. Not because I "have to" but because I want to do it this way, personally.

Whether I'm a coward is nobody's fucking business except mine. Sometimes I think I am, and then I try for a while and remember why I wanted to die in the first place: trying doesn't matter, life isn't enjoyable nor worth it by any other metric, and I didn't ask to be here. Sure, nobody asked to be here, but it was ultimately their choice to stay. Good for them, that's not my problem, it's their choice. I don't owe them anything. If they care so much about my choice, they can actually help me. Oh, what's that, I'm not entitled to help? Oh, what a beautiful full circle we've drawn. Oh, how wonderful it is to arrive yet again at the same philosophical impasse. What a waste of fucking time. Just intellectual blue balling.

If they don't substantively help, then it's no different than moral grandstanding. My choice to kill myself will ultimately not be based on the dumbass opinions of irrelevant third-parties who know nothing about me and just use their own life as a yardstick to measure me against, waiting to inflate their ego with my last breath.

In hindsight as an adult, it was definitely inappropriate. To say anything was inappropriate.

I respect your last point there a lot. I'm not going to outsource to others the final decision I ever make. And their opinion is irrelevant. You're right.

I also agree there is no high ground. It's a tragedy for all parties.

Without some religious doctrine stating life is inherently precious or sanctioned by some divine being, there's no philosophical take on this that doesn't contradict itself and end in a full circle. And that's ignoring the irony of trying to use philosophy to justify killing yourself.

"You don't like the system? Then why are you participating in it?"

"You want to stop participating? Wow, you're such a selfish coward."

Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you

Curious!

 

[purebliss]

Except they did a lot to try and make me happy. I didn't ask to exist, but neither did they. And they worked hard their entire lives to give me comforts and support me.

If that allows you to cope with the situation so be it. Purely objectively speaking: They in fact asked for you to exist by partaking in a process called "birth" :')
They could have aborted that at any point. They did not.
Therefore, every complaint they have, should be directed towards themselves.

 

[LigottiIsRight]

I can get the selfish part (although I disagree with it), but the cowardly one is just plain stupid.

 

[coolcow1289]

If that allows you to cope with the situation so be it. Purely objectively speaking: They in fact asked for you to exist by partaking in a process called "birth" :')
They could have aborted that at any point. They did not.
Therefore, every complaint they have, should be directed towards themselves.

It doesn't help me cope. It makes my life a lot harder actually. If I had nobody who cared about me, I'd have CTB yesterday.

And why stop at them. Maybe I should blame my great great great grandfather because if he didn't give birth to my great great grandmother, I wouldn't be here. Maybe I should blame the 375 million year old fishapods for crawling out of the ocean. Get a time machine and tell them to get back in the water because we never asked to exist.

 

[purebliss]

It doesn't help me cope. It makes my life a lot harder actually. If I had nobody who cared about me, I'd have CTB yesterday.

And why stop at them. Maybe I should blame my great great great grandfather because if he didn't give birth to my great great grandmother, I wouldn't be here. Maybe I should blame the 375 million year old fishapods for crawling out of the ocean. Get a time machine and tell them to get back in the water because we never asked to exist.

You are correct in that! Despite your sarcasm: Only creatures that procreate knowing of the misfortune of their offspring can be held liable.

So basically only modern people. You can not blame a pigeon for doing something it has no control over: We do, though. We actively know what we are doing, so we can be held liable for our choices. And that is by far one of the most terrible choices any being can do.

 

[Achlys-Aergia]

This has been drilled into me since I was a little kid. In 4th grade, a high schooler in my town killed herself. I remember our DARE officer lecturing us afterwards, saying how selfish and cowardly that decision was. "She took the easy way out!" he said. I still remember it.

So, is it true?

I see the argument. I'm just going to transfer my suffering to others. Because I can't bear it, when others clearly can. So maybe they're right.

As a chronically suicidal person myself, I think it is technically selfish, but I don't view selfishness as a moral failing in this case, and it being selfish doesn't mean that people can't make the decision for themselves. In the end, I believe that we should live (and die) for ourselves.