the Stoic (Suicide)

 

I spent some time reading the Stoics, in particular Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, and I came to appreciate their perspective on things. There are better places to get an education on Stoicism than from me, but basically, Stoicism is very nature-driven, and very much about resignation and acceptance of your station. It's a common observation that the two most popular Stoic philosophers come from two very different social extremes: Epictetus having been born into slavery and Marcus Aurelius born into royalty. But to get to the point, Stoicism tended to concentrate on nature itself as the entity, leaving the rest of us as merely expressions of the entity. In some respects it encouraged the furthest thing from anything egocentric. Our interest should be to find our place with regard to the larger entity of nature and its interests. One unusual aspect of Stoicism is that it didn't look unkindly upon suicide. If the well-meaning individual were so blockaded by obstacles that he couldn't live with happiness or productivity then the option of taking his own life was fine, and often commendable. Generally speaking, the Stoics didn't believe in the afterlife, but believed that every element of the individual reabsorbed and re-expressed in nature, both physically and spiritually: that the power that animated him would now animate another. Everything, whether living or dying, was a part of the larger continuum.

I think our culture is a bit too absolute about its view of suicide anyway. Of course it's unfortunate when someone, distraught, takes an action in a moment that can't be undone, but I don't believe that this accounts for every suicide. At any rate, that's not the situation of my Stoic here. This guy has made a conscious decision that he's resigned to. But this depiction is not only of a guy committing suicide, it could NOT have just as well have been some guy in a room with a gun, or someone hanging on a rope. The landscape is important to my statement. The reason why this guy is seen from behind and above is precisely so that I could incorporate the landscape into the picture, for he's not only jumping to his death, but back into nature, giving himself back to the power that will continue to express itself in another life form.

 

"Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look at the immensity of time behind you, and to the time which is before you, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?" - Marcus Aurelius.

 

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