But is it ALWAYS wrong? Yes, for me it always was. How can one decide to take their own life? Only cowards or selfish people do it. Do they not think of their loved ones? The people who will mourn their untimely death once they are gone? Is it not an easy way out of life? Braving whatever life throws at us is the biggest lesson we are thought, and so this act of running away always seemed very spineless.
Life was very black and white for me. Then I came across a case of a teacher who jumped from her building terrace. She had some form of a spinal condition which caused incessant pains and she had to withdraw from social life due to it. It was also going to be getting worse from then on for her. In her last note, she said that she just cannot bear the pain any longer and that death is the only medicine for her. That was like a slap on my face! I had never, even in my imagination thought of this perspective!
Now I was a skeptic of my own beliefs!
And just the other day, I read about a certain someone, who after finding out that they were terminal, went ahead and planned their own suicide. Or to be more specific, "Assisted Suicide"! Right from the moment he was diagnosed to the very last day of his life(which he himself chose), he penned his thoughts and his condition on a blog. After reading about him, I went ahead and read his blog entries too.
He lived a 105 days post his diagnosis, and the blog posts were not daily, sometimes lengthy though. I sat there reading through them with a very weird feeling. The guy wanted to die, dignified and on his own terms, not at the hands of the "scourge" as he would call it. And for this he had to fight tooth and nail, and then get a greenlight in a country far far away!
He did not want to die a sudden and malformed death. Suffer and let his close ones see suffer more by watching him go through it. On a logical level, his thoughts were resonating with me, but on a moral level it was still a mighty struggle for me. And these conflicting thoughts were making it a very very uncomfortable read. One one hand I wanted to know more, and on the other, it felt like a big mistake.
Just by thinking of it, gives me the jitters. I am more befuddled than ever! Confounded as well, as to how someone can be so clam and clear in the head, on the very last day of their choosing! Then why am I writing this? Well, in one of his entries, he specifically mentions it to the readers to think and write about "Assisted Suicide". So that more people become aware of it, and there is a conversation over it. So that people like him, can find their end a bit more easily than he got.
I don't know if I can ever truly relate or agree to his thought process fully. But in my own little way, what I can do is, write this, and put it up on my blog for however small audience. To read about, ruminate and talk about it in their own groups. This much I feel I owe it to him!
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