Connie’s comment > Likes and Comments

I really appreciate your perspective. I agree with you on the premise that forcing someone to live in misery is selfish, and the Cloud Atlas quote is incredible. However, describing suicide as selfish doesn't necessarily imply judgement. I think you're right in that suicide requires an incredible will power and courage. For one, this person is going directly against their natural human instinct to survive. But on top of that, they must exclude the experiences, reactions, and emotions of everyone they know and don't know, their past and present and future. They must commit this act with total self-involvement in order to be successful, otherwise it would be impossible. In that way, I believe suicide is always selfish. That is not to say that suicide is easy, or petty, or rash, or even hyperbolic. I have no intention of passing judgement on those who choose suicide, but if we take the connotations of "selfish" out of the question, don't you think there's some truth there?

It depends on the definition of selfish you prefer. But, considering a majority suggest or include "[concern] with one's own personal profit or pleasure" as part of the definition I would say it is then false. You can't just take a word and say let's strip it of all connotation except what I feel fits to describe this thing. Like I've said before, the living people who you reason are the obligatory features of why suicide is selfish, to me, are even more selfish. Just because the people have more to gain because the person is alive the person should live in misery? The selfishness of these people includes also the piece you would like to apply which is the lack of consideration for others. I would also suggest that many people who commit suicide probably do think through the entire implications of their choice. I don't think you can really say that every person who commits suicide thinks of only themselves; have you spoken to every single person who ever committed suicide? Yes, some people may commit suicide for more selfish reasons than you perform any of your actions with, but I doubt that it is the majority. And if it is, then I believe we have an education problem not a suicide problem.

Like I've said before, the living people who you reason are the obligatory features of why suicide is selfish, to me, are even more selfish. Just because the people have more to gain because the person is alive the person should live in misery?
I would call that love, not selfishness.
Yes, I want my friends and family to be alive. No, I don't want them to be in pain. I've been there and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But is it selfish to want them to get better? Or is it just love?

Abby wrote: " Like I've said before, the living people who you reason are the obligatory features of why suicide is selfish, to me, are even more selfish. Just because the people have more to gain because the p..."
It depends on your idea of love. If you want someone better who has reasoned that their best options is to commit suicide, than loving that person and wanting them better is to let them or want them to commit suicide. That is a selfless idea of love. Most people carry a selfish idea of love that is centered around their own person and their own relationships. To say that the people you love are always going to "get better" (meaning be happy and keep living) is to value your own living relationship with them, which is most definitely beneficial for yourself and selfish. And, to clarify. This is the same "love" that tends to happen when a kid get a great opportunity and mom "loves" them to much to let them leave the home. The mom doesn't love the kid, she loves the idea of the relationship or the ideal relationship she has with this person.

That's completely selfish in every way.

Life takes a lot of courage, nothing courageous about suicide, there is no come back, life gives choices. We all suffer the hardships of life but there isn't nothing to suffer once all emotions have been eradicated. You don't erase the pain from your heart by suicide, you just hand it over to the ones that loved you most. R.I.P Denny. XxXx