The tragedy of suicide that afflicts families just about everywhere has been, is, and will be the result of a mysterious choice. Yes, we might have a sketchy idea why some might take their own lives: Terminal and mental illnesses and losses of some kind, such as financial loss or the loss of a loved one. But at the heart of any decision to leave life voluntarily is the question about the final nature of the choice. There is, after all, no return policy on the decision. All sales are final.
Tenuous as every life is, self-conscious life is apparently also rare in the universe. So far, we seem to be in a very small group of self-aware beings. Because humans have a tradition of valuing highly anything that is rare (gold, diamonds, platinum), shouldn’t we also value highly the rarity called self-consciousness? Accepting self-consciousness as valuable makes suicide all the more mysterious. Why abandon something deemed to have great value because of its rarity?
Suicide removes a self-conscious organism from the universe of rare self-consciousness. That removal befuddles the living because self-consciousness defines human value. Shouldn’t we want more, not less?
In the universe’s store of possibilities, self-awareness has its price. It can be costly to realize that no product is perfect, that much effort has gone into the development of imperfection, and that such a product as consciousness can fade or decay. Every life has a flaw of some kind. Self-conscious life has the ability to focus on its own imperfections. For some, that focus appears to be an expenditure too great to bear.
The cost of continued self-consciousness is continued life and experience, regardless of circumstances. Yet, for some, circumstances seem to diminish or outweigh the value of self-awareness. They make the choice that the living find difficult to understand, a mysterious choice to abandon an essence of being human.
From our birth, we self-conscious beings go to the store of life to purchase more self-consciousness. Not every product, however, satisfies our need for greater awareness, and we discard some awareness in the vagaries of memory. We remain, however, self-aware until some terminal event closes the store’s door to further purchases.
Self-consciousness is an existential affluence that exceeds in value any material storehouse of treasure. To enhance awareness adds value to human essence. To eliminate it is a mysterious choice.
Tenuous as every life is, self-conscious life is apparently also rare in the universe. So far, we seem to be in a very small group of self-aware beings. Because humans have a tradition of valuing highly anything that is rare (gold, diamonds, platinum), shouldn’t we also value highly the rarity called self-consciousness? Accepting self-consciousness as valuable makes suicide all the more mysterious. Why abandon something deemed to have great value because of its rarity?
Suicide removes a self-conscious organism from the universe of rare self-consciousness. That removal befuddles the living because self-consciousness defines human value. Shouldn’t we want more, not less?
In the universe’s store of possibilities, self-awareness has its price. It can be costly to realize that no product is perfect, that much effort has gone into the development of imperfection, and that such a product as consciousness can fade or decay. Every life has a flaw of some kind. Self-conscious life has the ability to focus on its own imperfections. For some, that focus appears to be an expenditure too great to bear.
The cost of continued self-consciousness is continued life and experience, regardless of circumstances. Yet, for some, circumstances seem to diminish or outweigh the value of self-awareness. They make the choice that the living find difficult to understand, a mysterious choice to abandon an essence of being human.
From our birth, we self-conscious beings go to the store of life to purchase more self-consciousness. Not every product, however, satisfies our need for greater awareness, and we discard some awareness in the vagaries of memory. We remain, however, self-aware until some terminal event closes the store’s door to further purchases.
Self-consciousness is an existential affluence that exceeds in value any material storehouse of treasure. To enhance awareness adds value to human essence. To eliminate it is a mysterious choice.
RSS Feed