Today is a sort of weird day for me. All weekend, 99X played 90's music, and then topped it off with the concert that Pearl Jam played at the Fox ten years ago. Today on Buzz, they played nothing bu 90's music. All to remind us. It is April 5th, 2004. Ten years ago, today, it was a Tuesday. I can't claim to remember where I was, or who told me, but I remember Hearing. Kurt Cobain was dead.
Looking back on the whole thing, it didn't affect me then, that much. Now, it sits in my mind and I wonder about it. My own views of suicide, honor, drug use, mental illness, (etc.) have changed quite a bit since then. But a few things still remain the same: when there is death, grieve, but understand the reasons for the death, and accept them, as they are. Death is never without a purpose. It may not be one we can understand, or accept, or even cope with, but there is one.
Purpose, you ask, what purpose could there be in a death of a briliant man by his own hand. To borrow a phrase from Stephen King, what purpose is there in the Hemingway Solution*? I'm not one to speak for motives, but sometimes, it is the honorable thing to do. This is not saying that you should kill yourself, heavens no. Too many people suffer, too many victims are left behind, and no lessons are learned if it is undertaken lightly. There are other ways to end temporary mental anguish. But when you are dying, or are in pain so great that it forces you to cease all other functions, then death is an honorable option.
I understand what it is like to be tempted by this Solution. I have stood on the brink of it several times, each time coming back by remembering the shame and suffering I would inflict on those who are close to me. Nothing in my life is so terrible as to do that to those I love. But there will come a time, one day perhaps, when I am unable to care for myself, when I am no longer functional as an individual. When that time comes, I know what choise I will make. To live on in the shame of being dependant totally on those around me, to be a leach on their lives, these are things I cannot and will not tollerate.
Did he feel this way? Was the pain he felt, what ever the source, so much that he could not continue out of the shame of being such a burden to everyone? This is probably not how he thought of it, I am sure. So few people think of death and life as I do. But in the end, we must ask ourselves if this was the case. We can't ever know, but I feel, deep within my heart, that it was.
So I remember those musicians who influenced me, and who have died in my lifetime: Kurt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, Layne Staley, Frank Sinatra, and so many others.
(*For those of you who don't know, Hemingway killed himself on a log cabin in Ketcham, Idaho on Sunday 2 July 1961 by placing a double barelled shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger with his toe.)
Looking back on the whole thing, it didn't affect me then, that much. Now, it sits in my mind and I wonder about it. My own views of suicide, honor, drug use, mental illness, (etc.) have changed quite a bit since then. But a few things still remain the same: when there is death, grieve, but understand the reasons for the death, and accept them, as they are. Death is never without a purpose. It may not be one we can understand, or accept, or even cope with, but there is one.
Purpose, you ask, what purpose could there be in a death of a briliant man by his own hand. To borrow a phrase from Stephen King, what purpose is there in the Hemingway Solution*? I'm not one to speak for motives, but sometimes, it is the honorable thing to do. This is not saying that you should kill yourself, heavens no. Too many people suffer, too many victims are left behind, and no lessons are learned if it is undertaken lightly. There are other ways to end temporary mental anguish. But when you are dying, or are in pain so great that it forces you to cease all other functions, then death is an honorable option.
I understand what it is like to be tempted by this Solution. I have stood on the brink of it several times, each time coming back by remembering the shame and suffering I would inflict on those who are close to me. Nothing in my life is so terrible as to do that to those I love. But there will come a time, one day perhaps, when I am unable to care for myself, when I am no longer functional as an individual. When that time comes, I know what choise I will make. To live on in the shame of being dependant totally on those around me, to be a leach on their lives, these are things I cannot and will not tollerate.
Did he feel this way? Was the pain he felt, what ever the source, so much that he could not continue out of the shame of being such a burden to everyone? This is probably not how he thought of it, I am sure. So few people think of death and life as I do. But in the end, we must ask ourselves if this was the case. We can't ever know, but I feel, deep within my heart, that it was.
So I remember those musicians who influenced me, and who have died in my lifetime: Kurt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, Layne Staley, Frank Sinatra, and so many others.
(*For those of you who don't know, Hemingway killed himself on a log cabin in Ketcham, Idaho on Sunday 2 July 1961 by placing a double barelled shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger with his toe.)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home