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To Be or Not To Be
“No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.”
-- Cesare Pavese
A. Alvarez, in discussing attitudes on suicide in the modern era, at least up to the time of his publication, 1970, argues that while suicide was no longer regarded as a mortal sin or an abomination, it still tended to be explained away as an aberrant event, whether because of young love, a Romeo and Juliet kind of tragedy, or because of the seasonal blues, or even because of national culture.
I suppose that our own era has caught up to Alvarez, in that we now recognize it as a more universal condition. Although few of us commit suicide, it is a common thought, that we could put an end to this nightmare that is our existence. Such may be part of the condition of conscious, self-aware existence, that you have this sense of choice, to be or not to be, whatever dreams may or may not come.
-- Cesare Pavese
A. Alvarez, in discussing attitudes on suicide in the modern era, at least up to the time of his publication, 1970, argues that while suicide was no longer regarded as a mortal sin or an abomination, it still tended to be explained away as an aberrant event, whether because of young love, a Romeo and Juliet kind of tragedy, or because of the seasonal blues, or even because of national culture.
I suppose that our own era has caught up to Alvarez, in that we now recognize it as a more universal condition. Although few of us commit suicide, it is a common thought, that we could put an end to this nightmare that is our existence. Such may be part of the condition of conscious, self-aware existence, that you have this sense of choice, to be or not to be, whatever dreams may or may not come.