The Depression And Suicide Connundrum

(Pic credits: www.thequotes.in)

Since everyone is riding on the Justin Beiber wave, selling their kidneys and souls, dying to get the tickets to that elusive concert, I thought why not take this opportunity and talk about depression and killing oneself. Because that's what most people are going to do after the concert.

"He killed himself. He must be a coward."

We've often heard this phrase being uttered by many. People who didn't even know the person, judging the heck out the them, after their death. Maybe. Perhaps he is a coward. Or perhaps he is a brave heart. It's all a matter of perspective. There's a general societal notion that one who kills himself is a coward. One who's timid and doesn't know how to fightback. But is it really so? Do folks who kill themselves consider themselves as cowards and losers? Is suicide really an act of faint-heartedness? There are no specific answers to this question. But I often ask myself, why is it that people abhorrently criticize the guys who carry out this dreadful act, calling them names. To be clear, I'm neither supporting the idea of killing oneself here nor criticizing it.

Let's consider this. Why do we do certain things? Or to put it in a simple manner, why do we do the things we want to do or we feel like doing? It's because something or the other drives us there. It might be our passion and desire or it may even be our necessity; our need. As an individual, everyone is different. Everyone is unique. Not that 'beautiful snowflake' gibberish. I'm not talking of it in a complimentary way. I'm talking about the biological and psychological aspects. Now this is important. There are times when we feel like no one understands us. Like no one can possibly relate to whatever we're thinking or feeling. Utterly alone and isolated from everyone. It's easier to say that we need to talk about it, let it all out in the open. But does that advice actually work? Talking about the problem, rarely solves the problem.

Imagine this, your best friend confesses to you that he likes to dress up as a clown and murder people. What would you do? How would you react? Would you comprehend with the fact that your friend could do something sinister like this and bail out on him or would you grab a shovel and help him bury the corpses? It's a blatantly weird analogy but sometimes people can't share what's going on within their lives. They're terribly afraid about their problems. They're also insecure about being judged for it, by this rather indifferent society. And even if they talk about it, it's not advice that they're seeking. It's about listening to them, understanding things from their perspective. Which is a very, very difficult thing to do. Sometimes, we just cannot explain how we're feeling or what is happening to us. We often claim how we don't understand why a particular person would just kill himself. Then how the heck can we expect to understand what drove him or her to that point of no return! Therein lies the whole crux of the situation.

Don't you just love it when they decide to act on the issue of depression by revamping the favorite hangout spot of Kota students.

You folks might have heard about the famous tale of Sisyphus. The mythical character who had attracted the wrath of gods and was punished to push a heavy boulder of rock up the hill, every day, until eternity. The most cruel twist to this curse was that once Sisyphus pushed the boulder up the hill, it would roll down back again. It was a perpetually unending and vicious cycle. But Sisyphus didn't falter. He used to go back and push the boulder up. He kept doing this, despite the misery, the struggle and pain. And thus, Sisyphus had become his own destiny. His own fate. The guy who was pushing the stone had now become a stone himself. As Albert Camus ends in 'The Myth Of Sisyphus'; "One must always imagine Sisyphus happy."

But why? Why should one always imagine Sisyphus happy? The most obvious answer here is because he chose not to quit. Despite being aware of his meaningless and purposeless existence, he kept toiling and going on and on. He chose not to let his cruel fate affect his life in anyway. And thus, we think of Sisyphus as a hero.

We can all relate to Sisyphus in some way or the other. We all have our very own boulders to push up the hill. Unrealistic expectations, wild ambitions, stuck up jobs and routines, unhealthy relationships, pain and suffering, disappointments and failures, hopelessness and depression.
After all, we're all pushing our very own rocks, up the hill. Everyday of our existence.

But the thing here is, he was Sisyphus. And we aren't. Yes, we could definitely choose to be like him. Or we could choose not to. We could choose to strive and keep going despite the hardships, Or we could choose to escape it forever. You could accept your fate or choose to revolt against it. It's all up to your conscience. A personal choice of our consciousness. And what we choose, ends up defining us.
As Chuck Palahniuk says in Choke, "Torture is torture and humiliation is humiliation, only if one chooses to suffer."

Every individual has a different coping mechanism. It might be music or words. It might be art or drugs. It might be alcohol and partying. Reading or eating. Laughing or crying. Struggling or sleeping. holding on or letting go. Or even, living on or choosing to die. It differs from person to person. From individual to individual. Your very own escape zone. And that's what makes suicide a very complicated and very sensitive issue to speak upon.

Indeed, hope is a good thing. But one should never let optimism turn into a delusion. Agreed, ignorance is bliss. But when the delusion shatters, the heartache that follows is the worst. One needs to be aware of this bitter reality. Only then one can learn to embrace and accept it. Living in denial doesn't help. In Jim Morrison's words, "Once you make peace with the authority, you become the authority!" That's exactly what Sisyphus did.

Now, I won't kill myself, no matter how fucked up shit is. Not because I consider myself as a hero. It's because I haven't got the slightest bit of courage or determination to do so. So that does make me a coward in literal sense. I would any day prefer a shitty life over no life at all! For, something is always better than nothing. Life is indeed beautiful than death. One just has to change one's perception about it. The worst thing about committing suicide is that you can't commit it twice. And now, that's my opinion. I won't force it upon you.

It's okay if you can't imagine Sisyphus as happy. It doesn't matter. As we don't actually know whether he was happy as a butterfly or sad as a sack of shit. Sadness isn't as pathetic an emotion, as they portray. It's a beautiful thing, one of the most powerful emotion if you somehow learn to channel it into your passion and your talent. At least that's what Steven Wilson taught me! Anyway, happiness and sadness are relatively dependent on each other. You can't feel the former if you've never experienced the latter.

What matters is that you keep going. To keep moving and crawling, no matter what. Keep pushing that boulder of yours, up the hill. And if you feel like you've hit the rock bottom and reached your breaking point. When you're tired and just feel like you can't take it anymore, you could shove that boulder aside for a moment and do something else, like you know, take a shit or something. For me it's music, books and dank memes. My eternal solace from bullshit!

Take a break and hide away momentarily from all this. How? I don't know, sing, dance or just roll a joint and wander off naked into the mountains. Just stop taking your shit seriously. As Oscar Wilde says, "Life is too important to be taken seriously."

Pearls of wisdom from Rick and Morty!(Pic Source: Reddit.)

The point here is, just for that one moment, do whatever the fuck makes you feel good about yourself and lets you sleep through the night. And then, when you're ready again, you can take the boulder and show it who's the boss. Or maybe, you could just say "fuck it" and take that leap of faith to escape it once and for all. They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
The world needs you. You might just be the next legend in the making! Who knows, you could be the cure for cancer or just the worst form of cancer yourself. In my opinion, either way, life is totally worth living!

Eventually, it's up to you. How you choose to live or...die.

Yeah Jerry, it works. It always works.