THE NIGHT IS MY HAVEN, MY SANCTUARY; IT CRADLES MY MUSE, MY VIGOR, MY SANGUINITY.
WHEN THEE AFTER DUSK COMETH LOOKING FOR ME, I REFLECT UPON THEE THAT'D COMETH ONTO ME.

The Fellowship

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Suicidal Instincts

Before i scare the bejesus out of my near and dear, once and for all, lemme make it clear that this is not about me. Might have been one of the most erratic people ever with an unsatiable appetite for speed thrills, but i am a long way from going the kamikaze way... That apart, the eternal optimist in me will never say "die" and the opportunist that i am, will never have to say "die"....

The point i want to touch here is the change in psychological behavior behind suicidal instincts... Suicidal behavior was earlier explained as "psychological pain and mental illness causing irrational thoughts, which are treatable and temporary". Suicide is no longer an irrational decison. Suicide is no longer just for the "losers" who dont have it in them to face hardship, or for selfcentered people who think of nothing else but for the discontent SELF. Heartbreaks and random neural patterns are no longer solely responsible for suicides... Economists have openly claimed that economic theory has been able to explain the "phenomenon"...

It is as simple as valuing life in terms of the amount of happiness the rest of your life has in store, discount that amount by the cost of achieving that happiness and your share of expected sorrow and "if the net present joie de vivre is less than zero, suicide is a viable option". So, do you need more reason to thank the economists for having made suicide a viable option ??? Well..., they gave me more and so i'm just going to pass it on ...

Here is more apriori data for rational thinking... Roughly, only 1 in 20 suicides are successful... and about 2.9 % of U.S population has attempted suicide... Researchers add that people attempting suicide do not choose between life and death... They choose between 3 options...

1. death
2. The life of blues
3. Significantly improved life having survived unscathed.

Suicides happen because of depression and loneliness. All the sudden attention, and publicity in terms of media and tabloid often counter the suicidal instincts of one time attempters. The possibility of options 1 and 3 in terms of percentages out hustle option 2 making suicide a rational decision.

A study found that after people attempt suicide and fail, their incomes increase by an average of 20.6 percent compared to peers who seriously contemplate suicide but never make an attempt. In fact, the more serious the attempt, the larger the boost—"hard-suicide" attempts, in which luck is the only reason the attempts fail, are associated with a 36.3 percent increase in income. Explain that ???

The best example my search revealed was that of Kirk Jones, the guy who jumped the Niagara... He happened to enjoy the thrill of dropping 180 vertical feet without any safety gear, in the company of gushing water flowing at 150,000 gallons per second !!! Jones' parents pinpointed his being jobless as the reason, while a suicide expert pointed out the appeal of dramatic farewell... But then Jones had confided in a friend saying, "If I go over and I live, I am going to make some money," and then it was time to call in the economists. I wonder how much dope he made out of it !!! Here is the link on his story.

Kirk Jones

I get the impression that people who failed with their suicidal attempts realise it takes more guts to end a life than to live on... So just LIVE ON !!!

Any comments ???

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