Enjoying the view from Limbo
The essential philosophic question, according to existentialism — whether it declares itself openly or not — is “Why bother to live?” Or stated more positively, “Why not choose to die?” This question, the existentialists suggest, inevitably arises from history’s revelation that all meaning is illusory, and therefore all answers futile, all purposes contradictory — all life “absurd,” to use the term identified most...
Here are some numbers that might interest you — or might not. In fact, I really don’t care if they do or don’t. I report them for the record, for posterity, for my soul, or merely for the satisfaction of typing what I would rather not scream. Ten: The approximate number of humans on this planet — beyond my friendly band of Limbo...
Among the many remarkable insights of Dante’s Inferno is his assignment of the suicides (successful or merely attempted) to the Seventh Circle, that of The Violent, and one level lower than the murderers. At first glance, a modern reader might wonder how suicide could be judged worse than murder. How could taking one’s own life be more sinful than taking another’s? How, more...
I don’t do “breaking news” here in Limbo, but since I live in Korea, perhaps a word or two of first impressions would be in order, in light of the news that long-time Seoul mayor Park Won-soon has committed suicide after being accused of sexual harassment by a former secretary. This accusation is especially humiliating, in this nation built on pretenses of spotless...
As I have predicted, we are beginning to see a significant rise in the number of suicides, as news about the Pandemic that Ate a Planet continues to dominate the public chatter, and as governments, in a desperate race to exploit the mass hysteria, leap to the rescue with increasingly totalitarian “solutions” and “relief.” An observation: Doesn’t it take the nerves of a...
Robert Musil wrote that Kafka’s writing displayed the gentle friendliness of a suicide in the hours between decision and deed. I have previously corrected this lovely sentiment, as it is a false romanticizing (a redundancy, since all romanticism is false) of the suicidal man. Kafka’s gentleness derives not from a decision to die, but rather from a decision not to die, or not...
Gee, who could have seen this coming? The wishy-washy, flip-flopping, finger-in-the-wind, what-will-make-people-like-me-today?, unprincipled, self-emasculated, small-handed sissy Donald Trump, after four days of defending his abandonment of the Kurds, and mocking them as they died, is now threatening sanctions against Turkey, demanding an immediate ceasefire, and declaring that he will not withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. What will his millions of monkeys say now,...
No one commits suicide due to a moment’s transitory suffering. Suicide is by definition a last resort, which means that one turns to it only when other “resorts” have proved unsuccessful, i.e., when one feels that time and circumstance have provided no other solution to one’s suffering. The suicidal person, then, is responding to the accumulated despair of past suffering, or the accumulated...
A major star of Korean pop music (or K-pop) has committed suicide, seemingly due, in part, to a long-term bout with depression. The Korean and international media response is divided between pitying tributes to Kim Jonghyun the artist and pseudo-serious consternation over mental health issues. Meanwhile, almost everyone is evading the greatest concern at the center of this story: suicide. Kim, 27, was...
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