Internet Suicide. So Fucking What.

Some dumbass kid gets all torn up about his shitty life and how some chick he is crazy about will never love him and decides to kill himself. Perhaps all the rest of you are not aware, but this happens ALL THE TIME! The hand-wringing and wailing about this kid make no sense to me at all.

It's also not news that some people watched someone kill themselves. That happens all the time too. In fact, some other guy recently hung himself on a webcam after being "goaded into it" by the people he was talking to on line. This kind of ghoulish voyeurism appears to be a part of our human nature. Not long after they started building sky scrapers, people started wanting to jump off of them. Pretty much from the start there have been people on the street below who egged them on. Guess what? Human beings suck. We always have. Take it back to the Romans who watched people get killed in the Coliseum if you like. Its just who we are.

So to the question of suicide itself. People were criticized for "goading him on". Well, why exactly shouldn't they? I believe that people should be free to do whatever they like with their lives. If you want to OD on prescription medication and kill yourself in front of an Internet audience, go right ahead. Fine by me. No one is making me watch.

Additionally, some of these fuckers just need to go ahead and do it. I'm tired of hearing about "a cry for help". You know what a cry for help sounds like? "HELP!" A self-obsessed ploy for attention sounds like "I'm going to kill myself, I swear!". There are too damn many people on the earth as it is. If you want to do your part to promote population control, have at it my friend. The truth is, that someone is going to miss you, but it won't be me. I really could not care less.

There is an entire industry in the US today that deals with involuntarily hospitalizing people who are claimed to be suicidal. This plays on our mistaken assumption about the sanctity life (see George Carlin's excellent discussion on this subject found on "Back in Town"). We think that life is SO SACRED that a person cannot even make the decision to end it, all at once, on his own. We let people kill themselves slowly with cigarettes and unhealthy lifestyles. Just not all at once.

For the most part, we don't restrict people's ability to create life either. Not even when an honest examination of the mating participants suggests nothing short of abject horror will be unleashed upon the world. No, we allow stupid, ignorant people to fill the earth with their progeny and then we refuse any effort to rectify the situation.

I can hear the usual chorus of voices suggesting that suicidal people are not in their right minds and are making a decision, influenced by depression or trouble in their lives, that they might regret. If they live that is. Which they may not. Others might point to a great list of people who killed themselves who "had so much going for them" or "had so much to offer".

Does having a lot going for you or being blessed with talents and abilities mean that you have less of an inherent right to determine your own destiny?

Some people like to talk about "those left behind". Won't mom and dad be devastated? Won't your girlfriend feel like a big failure? Who will play fetch with good old Fido? Well who knows? Its certainly no business of the guy who killed himself. He won't be here to worry about it. We don't force people to take certain jobs or stay in religions or marry this or that person for fear of letting their parents down do we? Why should we restrict a person's ability to give up on life?

I mean, sure its tragic, but so are lots of things. Whenever I see someone I love with a cigarette in their hands, I think about the tragic demise that very likely awaits them. I would like very much for them to stop. I might even try to influence, prod and bully them into quitting. But I honestly do not question their RIGHT to do it. If tragedy is what you want, I think its your right to have it; just don't expect me to cry for you.

Vacation all I ever wanted, vacation had to get away - Recap and Postscript

This should have been posted several days ago. There are no good excuses.


Saturday was the payoff from the whole damn thing. I spent all day with my sister. There was general mischief and minor pandemonium wrought in the greater Morgantown area.

It's hard to not make this sound like way more than it was. It was just us spending time together. But this is not something that we had really done since we were reunited. So maybe seven years or so. This used to be such an important part of my life. I didn't know how MUCH I actually missed it until I had it back. It was never weird or anything like that. It was just like it had never stopped at all.

Back in the real world the next week. Job. Home. Life. I really did feel better after having had the chance to be with Becky for a day. I'm grounded slightly; reminded that there is more to my life than misery and disappointment. There must be more to me than that.

I have basically ruined my certain parts of my life. Damaged much of what I hold dear to me beyond repair or recognition. Looking at the scorched earth that remains, I have to have something to hold on to. It's not enough to live everyday to fix what I've done. I don't even believe that I can. There must be some part of me that I can still believe in.


Some Buddhists believe that YOU are not simply everything that has ever happened to you and everything inside your brain. They think there is some part of everyone that just IS. Its not your soul, because that isn't real and even if it was your soul would still be you. It would still be dirty and fucked up from everything that has happened to you and everything you have done. Having a soul is worse than not having one because it means that I was always like this. That there was never even a chance that I COULD have been any other way, any other person. It would mean that I was destined to be this failed project.

I've been thinking of a Tom Waits song that I first heard sung by Johnny Cash (Down there by the Train - American Recordings).


If you've lost all your hope, if you've lost all your faith,
I know you can be cared for and I know you can be safe.
And all the shamefuls and all of the whores,
And even the soldier who pierced the side of the Lord,
Is down there by the train,
Down there by the train,
Down there by the train,
Down there by the train,
Down there where the train goes slow.


I'm sure that my sister has never stopped to ask herself if her brother was "good" or not. She never wonders if I'll forsake her for another sibling. We are the only siblings we have. Its obvious how special it is.

Being around her was a reminder that I have a place I can go to where I'm just me. Not the fuckup who did this or that thing and broke people's hearts. I'm just me. Just who I've always been. Even someone like me can be have a moment of grace.

Vacation all I ever wanted, vacation had to get away. - Part 3

Maybe I should have drank more. I mean, this is Morgantown for godssake. I haven't been drunk once yet. I guess I haven't spent my time well.

Why do I not have a single worthwhile thing to say right now? I guess I could yammer on in the same vapid way that so many people do. I'm not sure I have it in me. I don't know if I could even fake that.

This begs the question as to why I have a blog to start with. If I had an answer to this question...

Vacation all I ever wanted, vacation had to get away. - Part 2

I don't think this is working. I don't feel less stressed. I am highly preoccupied with work and home. I feel tense in my shoulders and I don't have anyone to work on them for me.

I've lost every last little bit of Zen that I ever had. I'm lost. I can't seem to calm down. I'm not happy.

I would expect to feel better by now. Its silly but I feel the weight of that place on my back. I feel the a anxiety of relationship issues in my heart. I know I have the power to control all this. I could quit my job and embrace failure in totality. I could end my relationship and forget about all the trials and joys that it has brought. In both cases I know that I am the source of the problems.

Plenty of people have similar jobs in similar situations. Most people do not become so personally invested in jobs where they work for other people. It's not like I'm a cop or a doctor. I think that I overvalue my job because its all I have in the way of accomplishments. In my whole life, I've never done a single thing that I am proud of. Not one. This job is it. Making money for some guy who lives in a beach house in California or something. I excel at my work so that our company might earn a few thousand more dollars or lose a few thousand less. Some dickhead shareholder gets to buy a new boat. That is all my life means.

Maybe if there was something extraordinary about me I could feel better about it. As it is, I'm bright enough to understand, without delusion, how boring I am. It sounds quite a lot like a poor pitiful me complaint, I know. That isn't what I intend. Its not how I want people to look at me, or how I want to look at myself. Its just how I feel and what I'm thinking.

I feel checkmated by life. I don't know what my move is. What now?

Vacation all I ever wanted, vacation had to get away. - Part 1

I was ordered to take time off by my girl. Actually ordered to. She resolutely insisted that I take a full week off work. I have never done this. I have worked at my job for eight years. In this time I have worked in several departments and even moved twice with the company. To the best of my recollection I have never taken more than 4-5 days off before.

I've never really felt like I needed one. I'm still not sure that I did. But anyway, here I am in Morgantown, WV. I'm staying with my sister. I've been solo pretty much all day. Ate alone. Walked around town alone. This used to be very common for me. I spent days hardly talking to anyone. I'm pretty sure that had a lot to do with my creativity. I think it gave me time to ruminate on things. Spend days thinking about something. Quiet is useful.

Its lonely. Its hard to get used to.