This month’s post — the 4th of 72 of this Airman’s Writings — is dedicated to my best friend, Jermaine Reese.

Thanks for taking the time to open this post. This one is significantly longer than my other posts so far, but I hope that its length does not deter you from reading through this offering of my perspective and thoughts.

Given that this is Suicide Prevention Month, I felt that the topic of Loss would be rather appropriate. I begin by sharing some of my personal experience with loss. Then, I deviate from what would have been an attempt to examine the trends of suicide in hopes of understanding the problem better to then examine ways that suicide could be reduced. Instead, I take the less dark and less heavy approach of examining a few different philosophies specifically with regard to suicide. The goal of that examination is to prompt questions to myself — and therefore to any readers — about views on suicide.

My Own Experience of Loss

Jermaine

Jermaine committed suicide on the 5th of September, 2020.

Our last exchange:

Him I just gotta believe for better days

Me I hear you.

And I am sure there are better days ahead.

I’ll hold other thoughts for another time.

Him (Thumbs Up Emoji)

I made a rare Facebook post to say my piece on this experience of loss. I remembered some of the experiences we shared: fairly regular Sunday lunches at a Stevi B’s pizza joint, this particularly amusing event when a girl fell down and promptly announced the obvious with “I fell down!”, and his wedding.

I cried, which I find I do a lot easier nowadays than I used to, but at that point it had to have been years since the last good cry.

A year later, and I still don’t know how to feel about it. I know I feel something. A mix of frustration, anger, helplessness — how could I help anyone if I could not help my best friend? Can I even help myself?

All these resources out there to help people, and he even reached out to some of them — and still, he chose suicide as a solution to his problems.

This is not a matter of strength. Jermaine was strong. Any of us can be overwhelmed; none of us is invincible. I don’t feel particularly strong, but I don’t feel drawn to suicide… could that change suddenly? 

I feel like the answer is that I cannot dwell on it. It feels like an unfortunate answer — it feels like I don’t care if I don’t think about it, but another part of me recognizes that the reality of the situation was that he had made up his mind and someone as stubborn and smart as him couldn’t have been stopped.

He had a plan and he executed it efficiently. He suddenly had a weapon and posted a final goodbye via social media, completing his task with no way for anyone to possibly react swiftly enough.

He gave me a thumbs up three days prior.

Could that happen to me? Sure, it could.

Can’t dwell on it.

…the loss still bites deep.

Residual Impacts

There are all of the personal losses that I experienced, the below being a non-exhaustive list thereof: 

I lost my best friend.

I lost my longest-lasting friend to that point in time: I was 13 before I had someone outside of my family that was a stable figure in my life. Good, bad, relatable, Jermaine was the only other person I could just reach the furthest back in time and enjoy the past with.

I lost a German-speaking buddy. (I’d been slowly learning the language, a bit.)

I lost someone close to my age with a somewhat similar progression in life.

I lost a gaming buddy.

I lost someone that could relate with me over fifteen years of shared life experiences.

Then there are the personal losses that others experienced.

Someone lost a son.

Someone lost a husband.

Brother.

Father.

Church member, inspiration, role model, fellow survivor, community member…

We’ve lost a future with this guy, too — something intangible.

Who knows what good, bad, and interesting events could have unfolded with his involvement?

All I can do is share memories of the past and try to stay in touch with the people I love. This pandemic has made that all the more difficult; electronic outreach is not difficult, but with the implications on work and life, it’s often difficult to talk at length with many friends.

“Is anything new with you? Oh, stuff at work? Same…”

It’s all work, exercise, hobbies, taxes, news.

Life Goes On

Jermaine’s suicide aside, we’re all experiencing loss of some kind — if nothing else, we are all feeling some of that intangible future lost to the social degradations of this pandemic.

I had just finished my MBA program and had been looking forward to socializing and making new friends in the world outside of academic halls with my reclaimed evening hours. It was not meant to be. Gaming accelerated, but social connections more or less died for me — making friends that only exist virtually is not dissatisfying, but it’s certainly not the same as making friends I’ve met at least once in meatspace.

So, nothing but acquaintances-at-best awaited online. Even if I wanted to go meet people, it would be irresponsible… 

Vaccines made available a year later provided an improved sense of safety in trying to socialize in person, but my PCS was looming just a few moons ahead at that point — making friends would not be pointless, but the time to spend together would be extremely little; perhaps my time could be spent better otherwise.

I started writing, which eventually led to this project and this topic…

I definitely wished to touch on the impact of my friend’s suicide, but what else could I write on the topic of Loss?

Something Else I Could Write on the Topic…

I tried to pivot my thinking toward suicide prevention, but as I tried diving in, I found these mental waters dark and heavy. Perhaps another time and platform?

However, to summarize my thoughts on the matter of suicide prevention before I pivot elsewhere: The ability to help prevent the suicide of others is not so individual a task as it is a community task. The lack of basic needs-satisfaction seems to me to be the greatest contribution to suicidal ideation and execution. That, and the sense of hopelessness that is often associated with that dissatisfaction.

If we solve widespread access to basic human needs such as food, shelter, and safety — which I think is well within the global human population’s power to do — then we solve a large element of the so-called problem of suicide.

I say “so-called” problem in part because I feel that suicide is a symptom and not the source of the problem we all observe, but also in part because of my pivot:

Deviation from Solutions to Philosophies

My Own Initial Thoughts

Rather than dive into concerns as to how to solve or prevent suicide, my reading (which I will not call “research” — I do not think the depth or effort I put into examinations is worthy of being called research) led me to a list of arguments about suicide that led me to ask myself a few questions that I won’t explore in this post:

1. Is suicide even wrong?
2. Do I have an internal position on this? (i.e. Do I think suicide is wrong? Or justifiable?)
3. What makes a behavior “wrong,” “evil,” or “unethical,” anyway?

I am still contemplating these questions, but to provide food for your consideration, consider the below arguments that I came across in the early stages of my own considerations. I’ve summarized them from my own interpretations of my readings, so be aware that the intent behind the original arguments may be missing or less accurate than the creator intends.

Further, I recognize that this is a very surface-level exploration. I’m not sure how long this topic will hold my attention nor how deep I intend to search at this point, but again: the below is more to prompt thoughts that may or may not inspire deeper consideration or research.

Some Perspectives: Against

My interpretation of the Air Force interest in preventing suicide:

Suicide eliminates any further return on investment that an employee might provide.

We input time and money into airmen — uniformed, civilian, contractor — and expect outputs from them.

This is a cold view of the Air Force perspective (but from my perspective — I do not speak for the Air Force, and this opinion as stated is mine alone). Of course, members from higher echelons to no-stripers can say whatever they wish about the human element, but as a monolith, how can there be any other genuine argument from the Air Force besides the fact that suicide is inconvenient?

For what it’s worth, I can appreciate the Air Force wanting its people to talk about suicide prevention; I think that’s important. I just feel strongly that the problem of suicide won’t be solved by the Air Force. I believe it’s a societal issue.

My interpretation of the absurdist argument against suicide:

To commit suicide is to reject freedom. Despite the seeming randomness that is life, life should still be embraced for what it is. Escaping the absurdity of life through illusions, religion, or death is to reject the human experience of life.

I’m still trying to get through The Myth of Sisyphus — it’s all a bit much to wrap my head around. Still, it seems to me that the argument could be restated as “just because life is absurd doesn’t mean we lose the freedom to choose how to apply meaning to life. That freedom comes with absurdity.” — Search Albert Camus.

My interpretation of the overall Christian argument against suicide:

Suicide is a direct crime against God. An individual that commits suicide believes that their divine purpose is of less consequence than their own perspective of their life, which is obligatorily wrong. Catholic practice does include some concessions for mental health problems, however.

I struggle to take this argument seriously as an individual that does not believe in any god. To suppose that suicide is dually possible and an affront to God strikes me as contradictory. If free will exists but you are damned for making certain choices, then how much fidelity does that free will have? — Search G. K. Chesterton, Maimonides. 

I’d love some discourse on this…

My interpretation for the liberalism argument against suicide:

The most important thing is to remain able to make choices for oneself. Suicide permanently deprives an individual of any such choices and should therefore be avoided.

Kind of cut and dry, though the apparent initial argument was an argument against slavery, specifically. Note that the framing of this argument against suicide is not a result of my interpretation, but rather a clearly stated caveat of what I was reading to get to my interpretation. — Search John Stuart Mill.

My interpretation of the deontology argument against suicide:

Humanity should be an end unto itself. Committing suicide violates the “second formulation” of deontology as presented by Kant: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”

After rereading this content a few times, I personally come away with this attempt at a summary in more plain English: Anything you do with people or yourself should not deprive someone of their being a person. — Search Immanuel Kant.

Perhaps it feels nearly too literal, but suicide certainly prevents someone from being a person…

My interpretation of the social contract argument against suicide:

Natural law is directly opposed to self-destruction. — See Thomas Hobbes, John Locke. 

I got the overall impression that Hobbes’ and Locke’s arguments are primarily religiously founded. Even so, if we follow the premise, it is difficult for me to argue against this specific wording. While the cycle of life and death is one thing, intentional self-destruction does not align with that cycle.

Neutral/ Circumstantial Perspectives

Here is my interpretation of the Honor argument to suicide:

Suicide is an acceptable choice for atonement when it comes to certain transgressions or defeats. — Search seppuku.

At first, I thought ‘huh, why would someone take this approach to shame instead of just doing something to improve the situation?’ But, the context around this seems to come with some history. This initially occurred on the battlefield to avoid torture at the hands of a capturing enemy.

This action is also associated with the samurai class, specifically, so maybe it’s not a great argument to examine in this overall context. It is fascinating, though…

A second take that is neither exclusively for or against suicide, here is my interpretation of the utilitarian argument:

Actions must maximize happiness and well-being. Therefore, if the pain of one’s suffering outweighs the pain suffered by a suicide’s survivors, then that suicide is totally justifiable. Good luck trying to compare an individual’s relief via suicide to their survivors’ collective grief due to that suicide, though. — Search Jeremy Bentham.

I have no idea how the pain and pleasure calculus is quantified for this, and I don’t exactly buy into trying to quantify feelings to declare the moral or ethical quality of an action.

Another note, I’ve always looked at the difference between deontology and utilitarianism as the difference between what was intended from an action and what actually resulted from an action. That seems to be the case with the descriptions I’ve provided, here, but I might have to find time to dive deeper into these concepts.

Time is excellent at hiding…

Some Perspectives: For

Now, before arguments that support suicide outright, I want to preface this by saying that it seems to me that ideas that oppose suicide tend to have a more social perspective.

‘You should not commit suicide because it will impact others in various ways.’

The following ideas that support suicide seem to me to tend to ignore the context of circumstances of life and provide strictly logical arguments that yield mostly heartless perspectives, but I think there is still value for the overall discussion by considering these ideas.

So, Idealism:

The choice of suicide naturally follows from freedom of choice. If you cannot willingly commit suicide, then you do not have freedom of choice. More to the point, your own life is the only thing you have absolute control over. — Search Herodotus; Schopenhauer.

It seems to be that the will to live is contrasted against the pains, pleasures, and circumstances of life in two forms: as presented, and as desired. There may be an argument to be made that it makes sense to reject life as presented if life as desired cannot be had.

This definitely needs a deeper read, because that seems too shallow an explanation.

A final point made by Schopenhauer that I feel I agree with is that it does seem outrageous to expect someone not to commit suicide just to live for someone else. I do meet some pause when I consider the possibility of leaving behind children, but even then, I’m not so sure that’s enough for me to say I disagree.

Libertarianism:

I believe this matches my understanding of libertarianism from the political arena. Your life is yours and you shouldn’t be forced to live it according to the values of others. So if you want to commit suicide, that’s wholly within your unalienable rights.

Apparently, the libertarian argument goes so far as to ask to justify not committing suicide. — Search Thomas Szasz; Jean Améry.

I see this as another logically sound argument, even if that logic seems a bit crazy or extreme.

Idealism and Libertarianism make me feel like I have to jump directly to the ideas that “we all die anyway” or “nothing really matters in the long run” in order to fully hop on board their trains.

Stoicism:

Suicide is reasonable if life as it can be perceived is incompatible with being virtuous. Suicide remains an option as a last resort if nothing but misery appears to lie ahead. That said, suicide should not be performed if it would prevent one from executing their social duty. — See Seneca the Younger; Epicteus; Marcus Aurelius.

I personally really like Marcus Aurelius. Many civilians and contractors I’ve met over the years keep Bibles at their desks at work; I keep a copy of Meditations at mine.

Outside of captivity during war and the seemingly obligatory threat of torture in that specific circumstance, I might struggle to see any situation in which no options besides suicide remain for me to live my self-aligned purpose and within my personal values.

Confucianism:

This one was extra interesting to me.

Some values can be held so deeply as to be more important than living, or some circumstances can be deemed to be worse than death.

Mencius specifically wrote: “Life is what I want; yi [righteousness] is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take yi than life.” — See Confucious; Mencius

I feel like this aligns closely to the concept of honor described earlier. While I cannot see a way anyone would be obligated to living an unrighteous life — though now I’ve a mild intellectual anxiety about the idea, sheesh — if I for some reason had to be a corrupt individual or kill myself and there was, for some reason, no other option, then and only then could I see a clear-cut case for suicide.

The idea is a bit vague, but I actually have no issue buying this argument if we lived in a world where those were the only two options available. I’d like to try not being corrupt.

Finally, some miscellaneous arguments I found interesting include:

It would be better to commit suicide than experience so-called “living death” or settle for less than truly living [whatever that happens to mean].

It’s weird that people can refuse care when ill, while people aren’t allowed to commit suicide.

My Own Final Thoughts

I think my own position on this matter is not clear to me at this time. I certainly do not like that people feel the need or desire to commit suicide, but I also do not know that I feel particularly connected to being alive so fiercely as many people seem to be.

Being alive is interesting and so I persist in doing so.

I find interacting with others, observing the activities of others, and sharing experiences with others to be interesting, and so I do these things. 

We will all die eventually; if there are still things that interest me, I will continue to live to experience them as I am able to do so — I’m not in a rush. 

I do not think I particularly feel concern outside of selfishness if someone else wishes to commit suicide — it sucks, and it will likely hurt myself or others around me and around them, but I honestly do not feel like I could give someone an absolute reason to not commit suicide. 

I could dissuade them and ask if they’re sure about the desire to commit suicide. Maybe they really need a problem solved and the only answer they see is suicide. That seems to be an angle I could assist with, like the question of mortality version of “…maybe you just need a snack or a nap.”

Besides that… I recognize but cannot absolutely understand why I am inherently obligated to deny someone’s attempt to commit suicide. Socially obligated, sure — but inherently? Merely being a social being seems an inadequate answer.

I have my own reasons to live, but is there any universal, inherent reason to live? 

Wrapping Up

3000 words is far more than I expected to write on this topic, so I’ll just wrap this up.

Thank you for reading any of this. I won’t be offended if you had to skip around to get to the end. Or if you skipped it all, though you wouldn’t be reading this sentence if that were the case…

I’d encourage you to read through what your eyes can stomach if you did skip around a bunch, though. Not just because I wrote it all, but I think that being open to other perspectives is often valuable.

As for any questions…

> What thoughts, if any, has this prompted for you: anecdotes, experiences, questions, ideas?