Mitchell Heisman Suicide Note

[Nzinga, Seated]

I found this link on Fark. Apparently a Harvard grad commited suicide and left a suicide note over a thousand pages long online.

Has anyone read the bulk of it at all? I've tried to read it (it is quite long) but so far, I haven't really been able to understand the point of it all. I am assuming he has some kind of nihilistic philosophy, but I am not sure if I can read all of that. It's awful long.

Anyone want to read it and give me a review? No?

[AClockworkMelon]

That isn't a suicide note. It's an unpublished book of his that he uploaded shortly before killing himself. Apparently it was "probing, deeply researched, and often humorous".

Jesus Christ.

[Nzinga, Seated]

I need to correct myself. The guy wasn't a Harvard grad. That is where he shot himself, though.

I have read a bit more now. He sure doesn't seem crazy or anything. He sounds pretty lucid to me. But a lot of the things he is talkin about may be over my head just enough for me not to find the crazy.

[DEADTHINGZ]

Its a whopper of a book 4.15mb

heres the link for a free dload of the work

http://www.suicidenote.info/ebook/su...okmarks&page=1

[DEADTHINGZ]

Sorry forgot to hyperlink the site it's available on. Here tiz:

http://www.suicidenote.info/



One of the chapters is headed "Creating God and the evolution of genetic suicide. Why Liberal Democracy Leads to the Rational Biological Self-Destruction of Humans and the Rational Technological Creation of God"

sounds pretty deep, this I gotta read

[Nzinga, Seated]

The problem with reading this dude's note is...if one doesn't have the kind of formal education to tuss these things out...it sounds not only sane but...wise.

When he says fear of death is a superstition...I had never even heard of such a concept until I just read it. But he about has me convinced. Probably best if I stop reading the damn thing.

[DocCathode]

Fact #1 People are fascinated by the ramblings of the insane.

Fact #2 Almost no one reads my blog.

These facts seem to contradict each other.

[Boyo Jim]

This reminds me of John Kennedy Toole, who committed suicide at least in part because he couldn't get his book published. His mother persisted, and 11 years after his death A Confederacy of Dunces was published, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

I cannot recommend Toole's book highly enough. It is truly extraordinary and hysterically funny, and oddly tragic. Poor Toole, if he had the internet he might still be alive. And the book was so clearly written to have a sequel.

I'm gonna give this thing a shot.

[Zoe]

"Insanity" is just a legal term. And you don't have to be "crazy" to commit suicide.

I heard a woman say once that if she had a gun she would shoot herself. I made sure that her husband knew about it. He just shrugged it off with, "Yeah. She says that all the time."

This is a woman in a lot of pain.

[torie]

The Seditious Genius of the Spiritual Penis of Jesus: How Christianity’s Subversion of Kin Selective Altruism Evolved into the Modern Idea of Social Progress.

I'm sorta afraid I'm going to want to kill myself after reading about Jesus' spiritual penis.

[don't ask]

Originally Posted by Nzinga, Seated

I need to correct myself. The guy wasn't a Harvard grad. That is where he shot himself, though.

That's gotta hurt. Shot in the Harvard grad.

[AClockworkMelon]

The Seditious Genius of the Spiritual Penis of Jesus: How Christianity’s Subversion of Kin Selective Altruism Evolved into the Modern Idea of Social Progress?

No wonder it's so long.

[Perciful]

What a tortured soul.

[Beware of Doug]

Some of the Fark comments say more or less, "how come he didn't just get some friends and get laid and shit?"

It really is beyond many people's understanding that Some. People. Just. Can't.

[Count Blucher]

Originally Posted by don't ask

That's gotta hurt. Shot in the Harvard grad.

Better an open mind than a hole in the head...
*d&r*

[lavenderviolet]

Originally Posted by Beware of Doug

Some of the Fark comments say more or less, "how come he didn't just get some friends and get laid and shit?"

It really is beyond many people's understanding that Some. People. Just. Can't.

Perhaps a person who is severely mentally retarded, psychotic, or otherwise unable to follow directions could not learn social skills. I think someone like this guy (clearly a bright person) could learn the behaviors needed to "make friends" if he were motivated to get some social skills training. I think the main barrier to the bright social outcasts learning to socialize with others is that most of them either don't really want to change or don't know where to get help with social skills. Even if empathy and relating to others doesn't come naturally you can learn to mimic the behaviors of others well enough to get by.

[lavenderviolet]

The story is quite interesting, but I'm not going to read all that of course. It doesn't take 1900 pages to figure out why a bright guy who apparently places a great deal of value on intellectualism but yet finds himself working at a bookstore would want to kill himself (at Harvard in particular).

The real question is: Why bother writing 1900 pages to convince others that life is meaningless? In a meaningless existence, the act of writing this dense "note" was itself meaningless as well.
In a universe that has no intrinsic meaning, it doesn't matter if someone lives a life of happy ignorance for 80 years then dies instead of realizing the futility of life at age 30 and committing suicide. After you're dead, rational and intellectual thought are just as meaningless as anything else. That's why I am in favor of not worrying about rationalizing any of it, creating lengthy bibliographies, etc. and just trying to enjoy life while it lasts.

[statsman1982]

Is there an abstract?

It seems like such a waste of time for someone to write all this and then off themselves. I have only read a paragraph or two here and there, but it seems like it's pretty lucid. He probably could have gotten into a grad school somewhere and used this "note" as fodder for all of his papers, maybe even his thesis. I'm having a hard enough time writing a dissertation that only needs to be about 10% as long. Again, what a waste.

[Malthus]

If only he could have found an editor.

Oh, and the first sentence:

If my hypothesis is correct, this work will be repressed.

Well, it's not being repressed.

[Beware of Doug]

Help help, I'm not being repressed!

If it's any consolation, Ghost of Mitch, if you were still alive (even thru attempted suicide), no one would give two shits in hell.

BTW, did you know that males rarely attempt suicide? Those trying but failing are overwhelmingly female.

[Lakai]

Originally Posted by Malthus

If only he could have found an editor.

Oh, and the first sentence:

Well, it's not being repressed.

Has anyone noticed that nothing sane ever comes from people who use the word "hypothesis" when they are not writing a scientific paper?

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by lavenderviolet

Perhaps a person who is severely mentally retarded, psychotic, or otherwise unable to follow directions could not learn social skills. I think someone like this guy (clearly a bright person) could learn the behaviors needed to "make friends" if he were motivated to get some social skills training. I think the main barrier to the bright social outcasts learning to socialize with others is that most of them either don't really want to change or don't know where to get help with social skills. Even if empathy and relating to others doesn't come naturally you can learn to mimic the behaviors of others well enough to get by.

I agree it's not about learning the skills. It's about the desire to use them. And it's about self-identity and the idea that getting along with others through common -- maybe "rituals" is a term a guy like this night use -- might seem as some kind of betrayal of self.

[DEADTHINGZ]

On the other side of the coin no one gave two shits in hell about "The Cho Manifesto" from the shooter/suicide student at VA Tech. Perhaps there is some sort of silent dignity in offing 'only yourself' after spilling out all your intellectual conflicts? If 'The Old Man' had shot his head off after his first failed manuscript he never would have cranked out so much literary treasure. I suppose some folks may feel the only way to get their name is in lights is to get it engraved in stone first.
"Nobody understands that I am one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, I feel so alone, if only someone with a like mind could see I wouldn't have to finalize it this way, but alas it must be so, now prophets and scientists around the globe will rejoice in unison at my superior insights" (not quoted from the work just obnoxious sarcasm)
Sad but true, they will talk about it on the internet though, at least for a few weeks, days, hours.
I propose to read 'Suicide Note' in it's entirety. Geez what if 'Mein Kuntzf' had ended this way? I guess we will never know.

Thanks for the background on 'Confederacy of Dunces', I had no idea, and I have always wanted to read that as well. I also have the 'Cho Manifesto' and dloaded it from the web immediately after the VA Tech tragedy, and STILL have not read it. This work seems to offer a bit more substance from the headers as it were. I look forward to a full review from someone not inspired to commit suicide immediately after reading it. Maybe he got to Harvard too early and nobody was there? Or was that a "I spit in your eye pseudo intellectuals! so there! clean up this mess you have made haha!"
None the less, a needless tragedy in this day and age of global communication, there must have been other forces at work there. It is sad to see the smart ones die.

[AClockworkMelon]

Originally Posted by DEADTHINGZ

On the other side of the coin no one gave two shits in hell about "The Cho Manifesto" from the shooter/suicide student at VA Tech. Perhaps there is some sort of silent dignity in offing 'only yourself' after spilling out all your intellectual conflicts?

A person who kills only his or her self hasn't done anything wrong. A person who shoots up a school certainly has.

[DEADTHINGZ]

In afterthought wouldn't that be the real tragedy, if everyone that read it commited suicide immediately after they finished. It would never get a fair review! Perhaps bypassing this read may well be as life prolonging as staying away from the 'Necronomicon' in paperback bathroom reader edition format. Perhaps reading 'Suicide Note' is the truth path to enlightenment and not doing so will result in existential ignorance for eternity.

[DEADTHINGZ]

Originally Posted by AClockworkMelon

A person who kills only his or her self hasn't done anything wrong. A person who shoots up a school certainly has.

I concur, I suppose I was aiming for catagory "TEXTS ATTACHED TO PUBLICITY SUICIDES' but couldn't help wondering if maybe that may have well been in the original plan.

[DEADTHINGZ]

mood elevators

[Beware of Doug]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

I agree it's not about learning the skills. It's about the desire to use them. And it's about self-identity and the idea that getting along with others through common -- maybe "rituals" is a term a guy like this night use -- might seem as some kind of betrayal of self.

There's something to that. I never wanted pretend friends myself, but I gotta say, life's kinda lonely without them.

[Boyo Jim]

Pretend friends are more loyal and trustworthy than so-called "real" friends.

[FriarTed]

Originally Posted by Beware of Doug

BTW, did you know that males rarely attempt suicide? Those trying but failing are overwhelmingly female.

So does that mean succeeding at suicide is yet another thing men are better at?

*ducks & runs REALLY fast!*

[Boyo Jim]

So really, when men kill women, they are simply assisting women who would probably try and fail to kill themselves later. It's practically charity.

[Cat Fight]

Originally Posted by lavenderviolet

The real question is: Why bother writing 1900 pages to convince others that life is meaningless? In a meaningless existence, the act of writing this dense "note" was itself meaningless as well.
In a universe that has no intrinsic meaning, it doesn't matter if someone lives a life of happy ignorance for 80 years then dies instead of realizing the futility of life at age 30 and committing suicide. After you're dead, rational and intellectual thought are just as meaningless as anything else. That's why I am in favor of not worrying about rationalizing any of it, creating lengthy bibliographies, etc. and just trying to enjoy life while it lasts.

Well the guy did make a point of killing himself in public, in front of a tour group (not sure but they may have been teenagers). That's not looking for meaning, that's being a self-absorbed asshole.

Even if half of what he wrote is brilliant, it's hard to believe someone with the guts to continuing living hasn't said the same. As it is it's interesting to see how print media (at least in my neck of the woods) ignores the case or keeps it in the back page, to prevent copycats, but new media has run away with the story.

[DEADTHINGZ]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

So really, when men kill women, they are simply assisting women who would probably try and fail to kill themselves later. It's practically charity.

That's right, murder is only an extroverted suicide

[DEADTHINGZ]

Catfight [/quote]Well the guy did make a point of killing himself in public, in front of a tour group (not sure but they may have been teenagers). That's not looking for meaning, that's being a self-absorbed asshole.

Even if half of what he wrote is brilliant, it's hard to believe someone with the guts to continuing living hasn't said the same. As it is it's interesting to see how print media (at least in my neck of the woods) ignores the case or keeps it in the back page, to prevent copycats, but new media has run away with the story.[/quote]


I see, well at least he didn't open fire on the tour group. "and to your right you may see the Showing Today Only Harvard suicide event"

Is it true that you are right behind me?

[AClockworkMelon]

Originally Posted by Cat Fight

Even if half of what he wrote is brilliant, it's hard to believe someone with the guts to continuing living hasn't said the same.

The guts to continue living? Can you even comprehend the amount of courage he likely had to work up to take his own life?

[MPB in Salt Lake]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

This reminds me of John Kennedy Toole, who committed suicide at least in part because he couldn't get his book published. His mother persisted, and 11 years after his death A Confederacy of Dunces was published, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

I cannot recommend Toole's book highly enough. It is truly extraordinary and hysterically funny, and oddly tragic. Poor Toole, if he had the internet he might still be alive. And the book was so clearly written to have a sequel.

While I agree that A Confederacy Of Dunces is absolutely brilliant (one of the best comic novels of all time; a masterwork of absurdist fiction and a stunningly insightful portrait of New Orleans) I don't actually think that John Kennedy Toole's suicide was largely influenced by his failure at getting ACOD published.

Friends of Toole's say he was prone to depression since childhood and he had family issues that were also troubling him---Of course at this point it's impossible to say, but John Kennedy Toole, as gifted as he obviously was, had a lot of emotional burdens that he felt encumbered by, more than just frustration at not getting published.

Either way, as hysterical as A Confederacy Of Dunces is, as you said, there is indeed an underlying element of tragedy about it; each time I revisit it, it leaves me a bit unsettled.