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?
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 It’s an unpublished book of his that he uploaded shortly before killing himself.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.
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.
Its a whopper of a book 4.15mb
heres the link for a free dload of the work
http://www.suicidenote.info/ebook/suicide_note.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks&page=1
Sorry forgot to hyperlink the site it’s available on. Here tiz:
:smack:
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
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
That’s gotta hurt. Shot in the Harvard grad.
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.
What a tortured soul.
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.
Better an open mind than a hole in the head…
d&r
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.
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.
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.
If only he could have found an editor.
Oh, and the first sentence:
Well, it’s not being repressed.
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.