Sports writer kills himself, leaves behind website describing how and why

Deathwing_sl said:

I never said your personal story is invalid.

You're being overly judgmental and obtuse. Lose your job? Find another one, you pussy. Want to kill yourself? Too bad, tough it out, you pussy. And here's my personal story that allows me to be overly critical and simplifying of a incredibly complex matter.

Perhaps criticizing people who want to kill themselves as "something wrong with them" is not the best opening point for then discussing an incredibly rare example where it IS ok to kill yourself.

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I think you just want a bad guy, so you decided to interpret what I wrote in that context and put some words in my mouth like that whole "tough it out pussy" thing. I didn't judge, I laid out how I feel, and chose to tell a pretty personal story about a guy who I admired really for what he put up with. I don't know if I would have made it through everything he did without succumbing to suicide. Tuco specifically brought up debilitating diseases which is why I even brought that up.

Of course something is wrong with a person who wants to kill themselves. Do you think that is a natural thing, to walk around thinking about suicide because of simple things like "i'm getting old?" That is kind of a weak criticism to say "something is wrong."

This guy should have just admitted that he was a 60-year-old man who had nothing to live for.

Deathwing_sl said:

Just me eh? I guess Tanoomba and Mahes just happened to come to similar conclusions because I made them? I'm being admittedly more bombastic them, though.

And yes, that's fucking natural. Whatever is making some person's life suck, death is an out. To not consider suicide, with whatever weighting the context may apply, is the irrational decision making. "Getting old", I'm not even sure that is enough context to make a proper weighting. What if "getting old" includes hereditary Alzheimer's, which has shown in the last two generations?

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Mahes started talking about religion and prohibiting people from committing suicide, which is a weird tangent. I'm not sure how you could even do that if you wanted to, but whatever. I enjoy spirited debates with Tanoomba... for a couple of pages anyway.

I may have gotten carried away when I said that it was perverse and disrespectful, but that's just how I feel. I'm looking at this situation trying to imagine how I would feel if it was someone in my family and for these reasons, and I don't think I would be understanding, at least not at first. To me, it isn't flawed decision making to not consider suicide. Just the opposite. But I've never been in an extreme situation that I would consider on that level.

Tanoomba_sl said:

Sounds pretty natural to me. Heck, I don't even think the "getting old" part is a prerequisite for thinking about suicide. It's very likely everybody thinks about it at some point or another, even if most of us don't act on it. Death is the last great mystery of life, and sheer curiosity if nothing else has likely led many people to wonder about what it would be like to take their own lives. I'm not saying we should all be committing suicide at the drop of a hat, but there's no harm in thinking about it and maybe even planning it under certain circumstances, if doing so gives you comfort and allows you to avoid an end that otherwise terrifies you.

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I have considered suicide at a point or two in my life, who hasn't? I wouldn't consider myself healthy or happy at those points, I would consider those dark periods and not reflective of normalcy. ie, something was wrong with me. I don't sit around pondering existence and thinking about suicide, that's weird. Death maybe, but not the act of ending my life.

People can do whatever they want, that doesn't mean I have to respect their choices. Especially when putting myself in that position or, in this case, the position of one of that person's family members. If this guy feels so strongly that he is correct, and he must to have followed through, then why would he or anyone care what I think? It is his life, this is what he chose.

I read his reasoning for why... what a presumptuous, selfish, arrogant and narcissistic old fool. His case for why he wished to die revolved around not being personally embarrassed by the aging process. Big fucking deal, my grandmother had more balls than this puffed up pussy... and yet he goes on to embarrass the shit out himself with a bunch of poorly formed, half baked and woefully misinformed arguments.

All human life amounts to is a blip... well a self centered, close minded, unimaginative, coward would think that. If he was done with his time on earth, he could have volunteered it to a million causes that all need serious help. He deposits a blast of personal opinions and tells us what we should do in regards to gun laws, but doesn't have the inclination or desire to do anything about it. That's just pure laziness. I have no problem with the Jackoff blowing his head off... but he shouldn't try to talk with his fucking mouth full. This is just going to encourage other self important, professionally irrelevant ass hats in their golden years to set up digital douche shrines and let everyone know what a waste of time living is.

...

Actually I would like to rescind my former comment. If this starts a trend of removing white haired dicks that love themselves too much and share their opinions about everything while taking forever in line at the bank, then I whole-heartedly support this man and what he stands for. Carry on.

Pancreas_sl said:

I read his reasoning for why... what a presumptuous, selfish, arrogant and narcissistic old fool. His case for why he wished to die revolved around not being personally embarrassed by the aging process. Big fucking deal, my grandmother had more balls than this puffed up pussy... and yet he goes on to embarrass the shit out himself with a bunch of poorly formed, half baked and woefully misinformed arguments.

All human life amounts to is a blip... well a self centered, close minded, unimaginative, coward would think that. If he was done with his time on earth, he could have volunteered it to a million causes that all need serious help. He deposits a blast of personal opinions and tells us what we should do in regards to gun laws, but doesn't have the inclination or desire to do anything about it. That's just pure laziness. I have no problem with the Jackoff blowing his head off... but he shouldn't try talk with his fucking mouth full. This is just going to encourage other self important, professionally irrelevant ass hats in their golden years to set up digital douche shrines and let everyone know what a waste of time living is.

...

Actually I would like to rescind my former comment. If this starts a trend of removing white haired dicks that love themselves too much and share their opinions about everything while taking forever in line at the bank, then I whole-heartedly support this man and what he stands for. Carry on.

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As 'mal'formed or 'mis'formed as you believe his arguments to be, would you discredit him more or less for not saying anything at all and just killing himself without leaving any justification or insight behind?

Sulrn_sl said:

As 'mal'formed or 'mis'formed as you believe his arguments to be, would you discredit him more or less for not saying anything at all and just killing himself without leaving any justification or insight behind?

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I wouldn't have had an opinion on the matter because he would have been just another blip on the radar. Life is for the living, what goes on here is the sole discretion of those who are not afraid to live. If he wished to share his opinions on the matter he should have stuck around to defend them. To take a position and then run away before the rebuttal is just poor form when debating. It's lower than hurling insults. He pushed his views about death back into the public eye using technology. If he was not a complete douche or a coward, he would have had this public conversation BEFORE his death, and debated his points and dealt with the uncomfortable backlash. Then he probably would have gone ahead with anyways, but at least there he would have actually engaged in the debate he was attempting instead of just pulling a stunt.

Like I said the only problem I really had with it was his desire to opine about his choice from the unassailable position of being dead. If he had just made up his mind and done it in obscurity, he would have made a more convincing case for life being ultimately pointless and useless.

Tuco_sl said:

Someone making the argument 'old age isn't worth living for me' and then not killing themselves would be hypocritical. Making the argument, publicly debating it and then killing yourself would be antagonistica.

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Not if he raised sound points and was able to successfully defend his position. People would have respected his decision in that case, more than currently anyways. As it is, other people have to defend his position for him. Simply asserting an argument and then leaving the discussion permanently shows a real lack of confidence in his own views, or an unreasonable over-confidence.

Trying to determine what he hoped to accomplish shows a lack of foresight. Like he said, he was never going to have another chance to say another word about anything and had 14 months to plan this out, so he should have been explicit.

Tanoomba_sl said:

Never mind stereotyping people you'd like to see less of, wouldn't the world be a better place if more people decided to take control of their own deaths instead of fighting it to the bitter end and letting everyone else take care of it? The guy prepaid his own cremation and did everything he could to ensure his organs could still be useful for anybody who needs them. He didn't live to his eighties, taking frequent ambulance trips to the hospital so he could keep doctors and nurses occupied trying to give him a few extra months. He didn't spend his last few years in a nursing home slowly losing his mind while strangers cleaned his shit. He didn't get into a car accident driving well past the point where he should have been. He didn't wallow in misery about how terrible life has gotten and how there is no hope for the future and how God just seems to have "forgotten" him. In many ways, he was doing everyone a favor.

From an economic and health care standpoint, his decision benefited society. Maybe his friends and family will be deprived of spending time with him in future years, but they still have the memories of the time they did spend with him that will never be tainted by growing old and senile. Was he a pompous ass? Well, he was a writer. I still don't get why anyone would find reason to be offended by his decision.

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You assume he would have been a burden on the healthcare system. He could have been like my uncle Jim who lived unassisted to age 93 and then died in his sleep. If he was really super conscientious about the amount of resources he consumed he could have simply opted to not go to the hospital.

I take offense, in an age when simply taking offense is considered anachronistic, because he stereotyped aged people as being useless.

Some of the most amazing and influential people in my life were elderly. They often have a perspective seldom seen by the twenty somethings and other rats caught in the race for more stuff. Getting old is scary, it's probably the scariest thing anyone with a sane mind can do. Yet, being able to speak to the newest and youngest generation, and thereby bridge a gap that would otherwise be left open, is so utterly important for the longevity of our society and our species that it is something everyone, fortunate enough to live that long, should endeavour to do.

Reducing the elderly to a fiscal liability and a potential for discomfort is over simplifying and dehumanizing the situation. Just because our society treats the elderly as an unwanted burden does not make them such. The fact that he could not see this speaks to how narrow his focus was.

Having seen both the devastating effect suicide has on the individual's loved ones and people who've recovered from severe, suicidal depression to have healthy, happy and productive lives, I honestly think it's one of the most stupid and selfish things someone can do. The fact that he had loved ones to leave his possessions and money to goes to show that there are going to be people hurt by this, and all because he doesn't like getting old? Seems a tad immature. I mean I could understand if he was 80 and having his arse wiped by a nurse in an aged care home, but 60? Without anything actually seriously wrong with him? It's a shitty, cowardly way to go, and doubly shitty for indulging in such infantile attention whoring.

He's 60, what big new thing does he have to look forward to? How many times have you heard a story that goes, You know, life didn't really start kicking until I hit the big 7-0. None. Old age is the period of your life where you rot away and hope you die before you shit yourself at thanksgiving.

BrutulTM_sl said:

My Mom is 61 and she is working two jobs, running a business, and just got married a year ago. If you think life ends at 60 you're not doing it right.

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This. Jesus, my mom is 67 and still working at Boeing and loving it. My dad is 72 and is always working on this or that project on his land. I helped him landscape for a new pond a month ago with some earthmoving equipment.

If you think life ends at 60+, you are probably 20-30 and will almost surely change your tune when you get older. Get some goddamn perspective.