Reply #21: A Commentary on Suicide

[Lady Sonelle]

This will not be a popular opinion, but nonetheless, I shall place it forth for consideration, for it si as valid as any other.

Suicide is not always "The wrong choice"! There are times when rational, planned self-deliverance is the only reasonable choice if one is to retain personal integrity!

Poverty is degrading. It is ruinous, harsh, brutalising, expecially so when combined with failing health, inability to find employment or retain housing.

I know. I have been there.

So have many of My friends. Those who do not have an intimate knowledge of homelessness and the homeless can never grasp the full dehumanisation of the condition. They can never understand the sheer INVISIBILITY a homeless person attains when they become identifiable as impoverished and homeless. They can never grasp the sheer horrible DAMAGE done to the spirit, the soul, the body and the mind of the person enduring poverty and deprivation.

In a capitalist society, poverty is inevitable. Particularly so when the government makes it impossible for those on Welfare of Social Security to save *anything* for old age! When/if checks stop coming, the person is left with *nothing*... nothing whatsoever, between them and the street.

Again, I have been there. I have been homeless. I have known many homeless persons, know one right now whom I am unable to help.

For such circumstances, suicide is the only RATIONAL choice! Just as euthanasia is a rational choice for unendurable and incurable physical pain and debility, it is the rational choice when the alternative is death on the street!

And BELIEVE Me when I say that, should I ever again be faced with homelessness and poverty, I *WILL* kill Myself! When I was homeless before, I was young, in my early twenties, strong, determined and healthy. That is no longer the case. I am nearing sixty, no longer conventionally employable and in today's economy, not viable.

When faced with financial ruin, unemployability and possibly the street, suicide is the better course. But the best course of all is to use that final decision to *communicate* as well as self-deliver.

Just as the Buddhist monk who self-immolated made an indelible statement about the Viet Nam war, so can any person seeking self deliverance in this current political state of affairs.

In history, the finest and best examples of heroism have been those who made the final statement count. The Divine Wind of Japanese fighter pilots, in the dying days of the Japaese Empire, taking off with no landing gear on their planes, the self immolation of Buddhist monks, and, even though they are considered The Enemy, the suicide bombers who detonate themselves in crowds... EAch and every person who finds that they truly have *nothing* *left* to live for... and who have made their desperation one last act of defiance... I salute them.

Any population with nothing left to lose eventually is forced to consider such extremes. ANY population and I number Americans in that tally. Do I support terrorism? NO! In fact, I would really rather that everyone dies of old age, peacefully, in their beds, surrounded by loving family and friends... but this administration is dead set on seeing to it that ONLY the ones they APPROVE of can afford to die of old age! And so, to EVERYONE whose death would probably (in their eyes) "benefit" this current administration... DON'T DO IT! but if you do feel you have utterly nothing left to lose....that you have absolutely no other choice... You are the one to tie the white silk scarf around your forehead.

Lady Sonelle