Thursday, September 16, 2021

Min[de]craft

Why is euthanasia/suicide frowned upon? Why do people claim that ``he/she has died so young'' as opposed to celebrating the life that the person has led till his/her death, especially in cases where the life was ended by their hands? Why is it that some people can believe that God has plans for each of us and cannot accept that perhaps God's plans for that person was to end his/her life at the time that he/she did by his/her own hands?

Maybe the reason isn't so much as that they care about the person who had chosen euthanasia/suicide. Maybe the real reason is the innate selfishness of their own feelings, of how they might feel once they learn of this person's death. Most will claim that it is a loss if that person dies, but what is often unsaid is why that person believes that it is a loss to them. Almost all will say things to that extent as a form of reflex, a guilt admission that they were afraid of death, and dealing with the death of someone that they knew, that their hitherto unquestioned ``immortality'' was now being proven starkly in their face that they too, like the person who passed, will die.

In a society that celebrates go-getters who have clearly articulated goals, it seems to be quite paradoxical that there is such a strong distaste for people who choose to end their lives on their own terms. Isn't the choosing of a specific means and time to die itself the ultimate hard core goal, as compared to wooly ones like ``make my first million by thirty''? Isn't the person who follows through the plan for euthanasia/suicide one who has the same amount of determination and never-give-up attitude like that serial entrepreneur?

If so, why the double standard? If celebrating death is something that is a little hard to stomach, then providing that modicum of respect for someone's choices might be the right way to describe things.

Note of course that I am referring to euthanasia/suicide, not ``suicide attempts''. ``Suicide attempts'' differ from actual euthanasia/suicide in that they are often poorly thought through, impulsive, and are more of a cry for attention than a resolute step. They deserve all the help they can get, and perhaps society needs to relook into its values to determine if they have strayed away from what is healthy for inculcation into its members.

But for those who have chosen with grim determination their time and manner of death, complete with using high success rate methods, they should be respected. Because it takes a certain amount of guts to tell the world to fuck off and go on one's own way into the great unknown.

Why would someone choose death over other things? Maybe it's because there just isn't anything else to look forward to in life anymore. This could be from too much physical/emotional suffering from incurable diseases that give a constant negative quality of life, or even having reached the end of a long road mostly satisfied with nothing else to look forward to.

That latter bit is usually associated with the aged, but somehow I don't think that it is limited to only the aged. It is possible to live long enough without hitting age numbers that can be considered ``old'', and it is something that only the person involved can determine; anyone else saying otherwise is just projecting.

If living has no meaning other than waking up, eating, staring out into space, clearing waste products, showering, and then sleeping repeatedly day by day, then perhaps it might be time to just go. Why be held back with some unsubstantiated bull-shit feel-good optimism that ``it will be better in the future''? I would argue that living such a meaningless existence is no different from being put on life support after all ways of curing a disease have failed (it's terminal)---it can be considered cruel.

In most cases, those with terminal diseases are kept on life support for a long time because it is the will of the people around them who demand it, not they themselves.

Selfish bastards.

It's the same with playing the ``but you have so much to live for!'' types of talk that one might get when one declares the time and manner of one's chosen death. It's basic disrespect of another person's life---they literally have never lived in the shoes of the person, and have never considered their perspective before the declaration of a firm end date on terra firma, so why would their last exhortations be of any relevance at all?

If anything, I would say that those people are the ones who are hallucinating. Because they would rather pretend that they aren't going to be dying, living each day as though they were immortal, and then being bloody surprised in the end when they really die, claiming things like ``but I have so much I haven't done!''.

Well yeah, no shit sherlock. You failed to plan, so you have been planning to fail.

For the record, life is one-hundred percent terminal. We all [physically] die in the end. Now whether we die spiritually depends on whether we have been saved by the Lord, which is a different question altogether.

But let's flip the question around a little. All these seeming glorification of euthanasia/suicide is based on the rather strong assumption that the person in question is rational, that he/she has actually thought through everything that mattered, and have reasoned with himself/herself about why this was the right path to take, without devolving into some kind of emotionally charged state. That last property is the linchpin in the defense, and is one that can be manipulated by others who may choose euthanasia/suicide as a cover for mischief.

I mean, if euthanasia/suicide is less frowned upon, I can almost guarantee that in places where this is true, there would be an increased amount of euthanasia/suicide of ``problematic [to society]'' people, complete with water-tight reasons to demonstrate that the person in question truly wanted it so, as opposed to being in an emotionally charged state, or be outright murdered in the first place. So, to defend against others who usurp this power, there is some unspoken consensus to condemn euthanasia/suicide at the society level.

That said, if one is not of society though, then the rules only apply if one chooses to allow them to apply---a single individual can choose to break any/all rules of society with associated consequences after all. So if one is determined enough, there should be ways to achieve the end goal of euthanasia/suicide.

Just a little food for thought.

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On less morbid matters, I built up my apartment in Minecraft and prettified it a little with the carpets that I made from the wool from my wool farm. I also dug more digital cobblestones and friends from my deep mine while watching more Hololive videos simultaneously, and ended in some long and convoluted cave system which I proceeded to explore and light up to prevent spawns. It's probably the third or fourth day of not reading anything substantial, and it is a nice break in my break.

I can't decide whether I want to build a mob-farm or go explore the End next. If I do the latter first, I can potentially get Shulker Boxes, which will make transporting material for building the mob-farm way out in the Deep Ocean biome to be easier. But if I did the former first, I'd have a ready source for powerful enchanted equipment and/or repairing stuff with the Mending enchantment, which can be obtained from the deep sea fishing.

Hmmm...

Anyway, I'll decide whenever. I am apparently in a Minecraft phase now. T'is fun.

Till the next update.

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