547: Kill Yourself

[william]

Originally Posted by starscream

If a person becomes a killer because of his tragic childhood leading to his "wrong" state of mind, is his choice to kill people then tragic as well? Only to the people he kills. And the people affected by the act. Nobody says, og that's tragic that he decided to kill people. Same as in suicide. The only tragedy, if there has to be one, is suffered by those left to deal with the ramifications. Not the one who chose to do the thing.

I think the tragedy comes from compassion for the situation, compassion for your fellow man. It is tragic that this person felt that they had no other choice but to kill themself.

When hopelessness drives a man to take his life, he loses sight of alternative solutions.

That's when the depression and despair become so great that they just want to - in a very permanent sense - go to sleep. They're emotionally worn out, weary. They've given up and can't see past today.

They walk the streets thinking even the most downtrodden are better off than them. They scorn every one else's problems as petty, thinking that only their problems are truly devastating.

They are men in pain who believe they can withstand any form of pain other than the one they have. That their pain is unbearable. That they are hopeless.

They look out the window and think, "Just a small step and I'll be free."

They are tragic victims of their circumstances and states of mind.

A killer who does so because of his upbringing is tragic. And those who he kills have had a tragedy fall upon them - far greater than the killer - for they may be hapless victims who but for random chance, died that day.

But just as not every suicide is done out of despair, not every murder is driven by their personal demons. Some fuckers are outright sociopaths.

And note that the tragedy needs not be one-sided. Both the victim and the perpetrator can be seen as tragic victims, each with it's own perspective.

Nor am I saying that suicide is not equally tragic for the ones left behind. In fact, I agree with you - suicide is probably far more devastating for them.

The dead, after all, cease to suffer. It's the living who continue on in pain.

When Perry said, 'I think there must be something wrong with us,' he was making an admission he 'hated to make.' After all, it was 'painful' to imagine that one might be 'not just right' - particularly if whatever was wrong was not your own fault but 'maybe a thing you were born with.' Look at his family! Look at what had happened there! His mother, an alcoholic, had strangled to death on her own vomit. Of her children, two sons and two daughters, only the younger girl, Barbara, had entered ordinary life, married, begun raising a family. Fern, the other daughter, jumped out of a window of a San Francisco hotel. (Perry had since 'tried to believe she slipped,' for he'd loved Fern. She was 'such a sweet person,' so artistic,' a 'terrific' dancer, and she could sing, too. 'If she'd ever had any luck at all, with her looks and all, she could have got somewhere, been somebody.' It was sad to think of her climbing over a windowsill and falling fifteen floors.) And there was Jimmy, the older boy - Jimmy who had one day driven his wife to suicide and killed himself the next.

- In Cold Blood, Truman Capote