[quote=Jorick]
Is suicide selfish? Well, it's selfish insofar as it is a decision a person makes without regard to how it will affect others, but what of it? Other people are not entitled to one's life in the first place. Claiming that others are selfish for denying you something you want but have no right or entitlement to is a kind of selfishness in and of itself. It's a crude metaphor, but decrying those who commit suicide as selfish because it makes other people feel bad is like saying someone putting password protection on their wi-fi is selfish because other people want to use it and being unable to is annoying for them. Sure, by the definition of the word both of those acts are selfish, but being selfish is not inherently bad. Just because something is selfish does not make it unacceptable or wrong. It is utterly reasonable to place higher value on yourself than on others. Selfishness is in essence an expression of thought that other people's desires are not as important as your own, and this too is reasonable.I find it entirely selfish that people whine about their own sadness when someone they were close to committed suicide. What of the person who went through with suicide? Whatever they were going through (likely depression, and likely other things too) was so bad that they felt their only way out was to end their life to escape it. Now that's some hardcore fucking sadness for you. Quit your bitching and try to empathize with that situation before declaring that now dead person to be horrible for their selfish act. People are so selfishly concerned with their own feelings that they lose sight of this sort of thing. Who are you to condemn another person's selfishness that caused you some pain when you're selfishly dismissing their greater pain in the same breath? It's fucking ridiculous, and it's one of the many things that show how stupidly and incorrectly people view and treat mental health issues.Getting all upset with a depressed person for committing suicide is like being pissed off at someone for dying because they got mugged and stabbed multiple times and died in the hospital a couple weeks later. A person who becomes depressed or has other mental health issues causing suicidal thoughts is no more at fault than someone who gets mugged, and the hard truth is that sometimes all the medical help in the world isn't enough to save someone from a stab wound. It's even worse for mental health issues, because someone who was stabbed will always rush to get medical attention, but due to our fucked up societal views on mental illness tons of people who are depressed or have other issues don't seek help. They're walking around with what is essentially a mental stab wound and not seeking help due to a very reasonable fear of what people will think of them and say about them and how people will treat them for it, and those same people then have the gall to be upset with them when it ends in death. It's absurd. If I had to measure the balance of selfishness in the equation, I'd say the lesser weight definitely lies on the side of those who commit suicide. Those who decry and blame them are so much more selfish that it's not even a contest as far as I can see, and it's extremely hypocritical to boot.Is suicide tragic? Eh, depends on how much value to you place on any individual human life. I, for instance, don't place any more inherent value in life in general than I place in non-living things, and I only rate human life as a smidgen more valuable than non-human life because I'm a human and I'm selfish enough to place myself and my kind above other creatures. There are over 7 billion of us alive right now, so I don't see the death of one person as some horrible loss. It's unfortunate I guess, sucks for those who knew the person, but I wouldn't go for some melodramatic term like tragic to describe it. But what the hell, if appeals to pathos are required to get people to understand that denouncing and condemning people who commit suicide is bullshit and we need to reform the way we treat mental health, then so be it. Viewing it as terribly sad and dreadful is better than belittling it at least.
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:golfclap

Damn you for making so many posts within a weeks time that hold so much truth to them! :P