If there were someone who was planning to commit suicide, imminently, and if you wished to dissuade them, would you:
a) Tell them that this moment is all we have?
b) Tell them that things might be better tomorrow?
I've been thinking about this question in relation to Buddhist and variant forms of eastern mysticism. I'll generalise, and just say eastern mysticism, or EM. We're always being told – or I am – that the essential message of EM is that the only thing that really exists is NOW. This is supposedly the essence of enlightenment.
Tell this to a potential suicide, however, and I'm not sure how cheering or transformative he or she will find it.
The fact is, however, EM contains, just as strongly (more strongly?) another message which appears to be diametrically opposed, and that is: nothing lasts.
There's only now. But nothing lasts. So, if nothing lasts, then now must go too, right?
Let's get back to the suicide situation, with scenario one:
'Choose life' person: "All we have is this moment, so you don't have to worry."
Potential suicide: "If all we have is this moment, nothing will ever get better, so I might as well go ahead and kill myself."
And scenario two:
'Choose life' person: "Nothing lasts. Tomorrow could be completely different. It could be a very joyous day."
Potential suicide: "If nothing lasts then the joy won't last, either, and I'll be back to this. I suppose that will pass again, too, but I'll just be going round in circles. I'll always return to this. I'm tired of it, and want to end it all."
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this train of thought – it's just something that's been on my mind. I've been considering writing two blog posts, one called, 'How Soon is Now' and another called, 'The Shadow Out of Time', but I'm not sure I'll actually get round to it.
a) Tell them that this moment is all we have?b) Tell them that things might be better tomorrow?Both are reasonable arguments but neither is likely to work with a potential suicide if that person has tipped so far into the distorted cognition that accompanies deep depression. For by that stage any reasoned argument is doomed to fail and only a determined stab at engaging the subconscious through interventionist psychotherapy or (usually the case these days) drug therapy is going to work.Beyond that though, this is an interesting philosophical examination.
on a different level combining em with wm everything always existed and everything always will. take time out of the equation.we don’t live in the present anyway in spite of knowing the idea.the mystic state is another level of consciousness which erases duality.the suicide candidate is saying nothing really matters and i don’t care. i’m tired of this suffering. goodbye.so i would tell him to work on himself, be present to his own nowness or whatever,remember himself and thereby unravel the mystery of who am i, and see if that doesn’t make life more interesting.if he swallows that i would suggest that he find a way to remind himself that he had at least once decided that life is good and put to bed the option of checking out before the end of the play.
Thanks for the comments.I’ll try and answer later.
I like the idea of writing scenarios like this:-)I would probably like to take them for a walk, or a journey of some sort. speaking is not everything.I just thought today about something close to the subject of either a) Tell them that this moment is all we have?b) Tell them that things might be better tomorrow?well, sort of…I thought of unity of, hmm… times. I wouldn’t say now is all we have… it is stripping us from so much richness! Some time ago I made this performance, where I was built out of 4 people, simbolically, and 2 of them where me in the future. I thought it gave me so much strenght, to feel my exhistance in time + so not just now. And it was nice to feel unite of me and me. So, time is material for us in some ways. So, what if, now + it is not just now, it is now in which exists the strenght of past and future. It seems to me, now, that it is almost like an offence to say there is only now… With time i feel more and more that past exists very strongly. And in some ways it is very supportive. So, maybe human is a unity of himself or herself in past and present with an open way into future?ps. sorrz for strange signs, writing not from mz comp, funny keyboard…
Will try and write properly later. Just wanted to note this:” …[mankind] thinks anxiously about the future, forgets the present in such a way that he ends up living neither the present nor the future. And he lives as if he was never going to die… and dies as if he had never lived.”This is apparently from the Dalai Lama. To be honest the second bit makes me angry. If I were going to live as if I were going to die what would that entail exactly? Would I stop writing? Carry on writing? Get a job at a bank? Get a job as a stripper? Hug strangers in the street and get arrested? Roll around in a graveyard pouring dirt on my own head and wailing, “Oh no, I’m going to die!”? What, exactly?But I suppose I’m angry because it strikes a nerve, since I’m sure when the time comes for me to die I will feel as if I’ve never lived. But I have tried, dammit! I have tried.
Just pulled this up on Wikipedia:The search for the Dalai Lama has usually been limited historically to Tibet, although the third tulku was born in Mongolia. Tenzin Gyatso, though, has stated that he will not be reborn in the People’s Republic of China.[28] In his autobiography, Freedom In Exile, he states that if Tibet is not free, he will reincarnate elsewhere.I hope that the next Dalai Lama will reincarnate in Wales. I think that would be the best thing for the world in many ways.
Okay, I’m going to write some of my further thoughts on the subject now. For some time the following apercu has been fermenting within me:People often say that a belief in an afterlife (let us say ‘Heaven’) fosters an attitude of always looking to the future and not living in the present, since it means that all good is to come after one’s death. In fact, in my observation and experience, what such a belief really does is simply validate this life through the next. Heaven underwrites Earth. It is a way of saying that the highest or the deepest reality is in fact Heaven, so don’t worry about it. If Heaven is the future you can actually stop thinking about it and get on with here and now.Conversely, those who emphasise the void after death, though they often claim to do so in order to highlight the value of the here and now that is “all there is” (again, in my observation and experience) end up invalidating this present life because this life is only underwritten by the void, which is the highest and deepest reality. And people can’t get on with the here and now because they are constantly aware that it is all just void (samsara, maya, etc.), and their thoughts therefore run away from the here and now and to the future when they will return to the void – thoughts tinged either with dread or longing, with anything but a satisfaction in the here and now.That is my observation and experience.
Originally posted by musickna:Both are reasonable arguments but neither is likely to work with a potential suicide if that person has tipped so far into the distorted cognition that accompanies deep depression. For by that stage any reasoned argument is doomed to fail and only a determined stab at engaging the subconscious through interventionist psychotherapy or (usually the case these days) drug therapy is going to work.Yes, this is very true. What is needed, in fact, is a kind of action. And with some people, it seems, nothing at all will work.Originally posted by musickna:Beyond that though, this is an interesting philosophical examination.If I remember correctly this chain of thought was set in motion when a new thought struck me in relation to the whole ‘there is only this moment’ idea that is so ubiquitous these days. It has long seemed to me almost impervious to criticism, since a person cannot be elsewhere than now in order to disprove it. Ah… this also brings me to my ‘Shadow Out of Time’ post that I haven’t written yet, but more of that later, perhaps. Anyway, the thought I had was this. When someone tells me that there is only now, do they mean also that there is only here? Often people do couple the two: there is only here and now; we are always and in all ways nowhere – now here; etc. But the idea that there is only here ALTHOUGH IT IS PERHAPS MERELY THE SPATIAL EQUIVALENT OF THE TEMPORAL IDEA THAT THERE IS ONLY NOW is much harder to defend, or easier to attack.If you tell me there is only here you are asking me (just for starters) to believe that you disappear when you leave my sight. Then, where exactly does ‘here’ stop? With the circumference of my body? Does it include all I can see? What about things I can hear but not see, like someone on the end of a telephone line? And what then, about things in my thoughts? Are they here in my thoughts, or are they somewhere else? Etc.I’m not saying it’s not true, but it’s not as obviously true as people make out the ‘there is only now’ thing to be. And therefore, to me, the ‘there is only now’ thing ceases to be obviously and impregnably true also.If I present the concept (there is only here and now) in one way, people think I am very enlightened and wise. If I present it in another way, they think I’m a self-absorbed solipsist. Sometimes it seems it’s all about the packaging. What if the Dalai Lama, instead of wearing saffron robes, had had spiky hair and a safety pin through his nose when he’d said that people die as if they have never lived? Instead of being considered wise and brave, he would be considered a nihilist.I recently read this on Paul Jessup’s blog:http://pauljessup.com/2011/08/15/you-take-it-in-you-breathe-in-the-characters-they-change-you/I would like to put forward the proposition for consideration (for me it is instinctive and I don’t know what claims, if any, I can make for its truth or authority) that the truth of a statement can be tested by the extent to which it is expansive, that is, the extent to which it allows life and the universe to be more rather than less. I think that it is the need for the feeling of more possibility that drives a person to suicide. They feel hemmed in. They need room to breathe, to live. They need, in some sense, an expansive feeling. It has been said – I believe – by a number of people that the only really serious philosophical question is whether a person should kill themselves or not, and if so/if not, then why? This seems to me a reasonable point of view, which is perhaps why I was putting EM to the suicide test.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:if he swallows that i would suggest that he find a way to remind himself that he had at least once decided that life is good and put to bed the option of checking out before the end of the play.I like this, because it refers the person back to their self, which seems the right thing to do. Originally posted by chrysantemum:I wouldn’t say now is all we have… it is stripping us from so much richness! I have wondered about this in terms of people who very literally live without a past or future – that is, people whose memory is impaired in such a way that they can’t remember what happened five minutes ago. Now, the only knowledge I have of this condition is through drama, films, that kind of thing, and I have no idea how true-to-life the portrayals are. But for the most part, the loss of… is it short-term memory? I think it must be, is convincingly (or persuasively) portrayed (for instance, in the film Memento) as utterly hellish. I feel like anyone who says that there is only this moment should volunteer to have their memory wiped the moment such technology is available to them. We’ll see what they say then. It’ll probably start with, “No, what I meant was…”On the other hand, loss of long-term memory, that is, a one-time loss, like a loss of identity, being unable to remember anything before one particular point in time, is often portrayed (again, reasonably convincingly) as more pleasant, or at least a more ambiguous situation, like the chance to start over again.I have more thoughts on all of this, but I’ll save them for later, if I have time…
I was thinking about the loss of memory. I cannot imagine a total memory loss. I guess there are cases when people forget how to speak. But even having alzheimer, it seems like a kind of mess in memory, if the memory would dissapear we would be completly incapable of anything. So past and future exist in the present. Maybe “now” is just constantly moving into a different dimention, different mattery. I think, eastern phylosophies came to England much earlier than to Poland, and for me the pressing on “now” seemed to be a nice reminder, that future and past are not the only one. I totaly agree with the heaven argument. If u believe in something apart from what u see it gives u more perspective. And we do have imagination and we are creative. And that is another dimention through which we are alive. The attitude “there is only here and now” is stripping us from a huge part of human life. On the other hand, I would say, There is also here and now:-) at the end of the day, it is easy to forget sometimes:-)
A somewhat related passage from Maldoror:”What were you thinking of, my child?””I was thinking of heaven.””You do not need to think about heaven. It is quite enough to think about this earth. Are you tired of life, you who have only just been born?””No, but everyone prefers heaven to earth.””Not I. For since heaven, like earth, has been made by God, you may be sure that there you will meet the same evils as down here. After your death you will not be rewarded according to your merits; for if injustices are done you on this earth (and experience will later teach you that they are), there is no reason why, in the next life, they should not continue to be committed. The best thing you can do is not to think of God and to take the law into your own hands, since justice is denied you.”
Originally posted by chrysantemum:I think, eastern philosophies came to England much earlier than to Polandi can see how that would be. since england colonized india mainly. they had two hundred years or so to be affected before the germanic states got wind of it.of course in modern times germany was quite identified with the aryan influence.that must have spilled over into poland. :idea:maybe we have to be simple about it. i have a tactile sensation of ‘now’ and being here. i have no such sensation about heaven, the past or the future. heaven is an idea. the past i remember some of it… what impressed me. and the future is pure speculation. some things i need to remember and some things i need to foresee. this is all about survival, our knowledge. our second nature, the spiritual, as we like to call it, exists in our daily presence. we don’t experience much of the spiritual reality unless we allow ourselves the freedom of relaxed openness. then we may ponder deeply and sense through inspirations the othernesses of life. but then it’s back to our mechanical sleep, survival intensities,likes and dislikes, identification with things and our other functions.that’s why i go to mountain tops to think. no tv, no phone just me. :happy:
Actually, there is this interesting argument man is the only animal intelligent enough to understand there is a future, and not to be locked into an expanding present now. …So, the idea of escaping that, to get back into the “now” seems very interesting in terms of how, that may be what every other species is experiencing all the time.
Oh, right. Or why do dogs bury food, or bears make a kind of covering for things they kill, including people. Good point.
I’ve heard a lot of people claim that animals have no concept of the past or future, but presumably the squirrel burying its nuts intends to recover them at some future time. And the squirrel must, presumably, remember burying the nuts in the past, in order to recover them.
I was considering posting this song as a general response to some of the above comments:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngmakCXGe7M&feature=relatedBut no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.Here, anyway, Belinda Carlisle is basically acting to perpetuate the Marxist idea that any heaven outside of earthly existence is a kind of act of displacement or sublimation created by alienation and unfulfilment, as per the famous passage:Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.I agree with some of this, but disagree with the conclusion. I don’t know, maybe there’s a kind of razor’s edge here, but I’m suspicious of reductionism. I think there’s always an elsewhere, and it is at least important, if not absolutely essential. The Lautreamont excerpt seems a clearer example of what I disagree with in the passage from Marx. It’s a way of saying that the world is horrible, basically, but seems to draw the conclusion from this that because the world is horrible that no one should be allowed to imagine anything good. But how can you protest against the horrible if you can’t imagine anything outside it? Originally posted by I_ArtMan:that’s why i go to mountain tops to think. no tv, no phone just me.Yes, I miss this kind of solitude. I have a different kind at the moment.Originally posted by gargoyle38:Actually, there is this interesting argument man is the only animal intelligent enough to understand there is a future, and not to be locked into an expanding present now. …So, the idea of escaping that, to get back into the “now” seems very interesting in terms of how, that may be what every other species is experiencing all the time.If we assume there is some truth in the argument (although I believe we probably know a lot less about animal experience than we think, and it has been pointed out here that animals at least seem able to plan) and if I understand your implication, then I think it’s a good point. Assuming – again – the possibility of the evolution of consciousness (I don’t see why we should assume that the evolution of consciousness has come to a halt, since we don’t assume that about biology) then why would we want to go back to the animal level? Wouldn’t we want to go on to something else?
It made me think a bit sattisfaction – in relation to the western culture. I have an impression that there is a tendency for life to go towards a feeling of constant satisfaction – watching tv, having sex, eating, getting drunk. This way of concentration on “now” seems to be quite primitive. Let’s say Christianity – says u should fast, and it is in relation to ur future life in heaven. So thinking of future is a reason of ur fast. And hunger is a feeling that is very much “now”. What I mean is, the idea of continuity of self, of its future and past, gives us certain freedom when it comes to the present. A freedom to refuse the instinct for a different kind of experience.
Well, this is interesting, actually, because, after leaning away from the idea of a now focus as the best attitude to take in life, today I have at least been having something like a reminder of why it is good to remember that we won’t always be around. Then again, I suppose even that involves thinking of the future – of one’s death.As far as I am aware, the inability to ‘defer gratification’ is seen by psychiatrists as a sign of sociopathology. And we all (?) are familiar with the idea of politicians and businesspeople being shortsighted (only able to think of their immediate gain)… clearly the idea of ‘living in the now’ is either not so simple, or requires qualification. One could say that greedy politicians only think of immediate gratification because they don’t live in the present, but at face value that makes no sense whatsoever. It at least needs further explication.
i think it’s all a giant misunderstanding. what is missing is scale. there are palpable levels of consciousness. in one of these levels we may experience timeless ‘mind’, for want of a better word. once we experience even a glimpse of that, we see that there is a whole enormity of being which is simply missing in our mundane activities.and then the inevitability of death goads me to explore other possibilities.
Well, let me toss this in: consciousness of past, immediate and future like a radio wave we can tune in [while living], but beyond that, will we find out the radio wave we were tuning in, is some greater infinite part of ourselves or that we are a little part of the program, maybe looping through all the same sets again, maybe in new sets?…I have been out of my body, and tuned in that wave [for seconds]and had some amazing experiences [with and without drugs, by the way, but the most ‘far out’ ones were without] and I certainly don’t have a clue at all about the greater picture, how the pieces of the puzzle fit,and of course, why any of this is happening at all. The math for any of this happening the way we appear to be experiencing it is — well, way off the scale.