From: tjones@orville.psu.edu (Brain Drain)
Subject: venting my spleen (long and rambling
Organization: The Leaking Spinal Fluid Co.
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 05:47:11 GMT
X-Posted-From: orville.psu.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu


AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgh! is that appropriately angry enough?  granted this
group is supposed to be about suicide, etc, but, and maybe the eventual
content will make it fit, this is mostly a vent my spleen type of thing.
maybe it should go in alt.peeves, instead.  

	any way, i had a REALLY frustrating class today thats left me in a
rather pissy mood.  funny thing is, there was a time, weeks back, that i
actually enjoyed the class that caused this temper flare-up.  this class is a
discussion class and i usually enjoy discussion classes.  notice both that i
said usually and used the time modifier "weeks back".  my enjoyment of this
class has been going down in inverse proportion to the deepness of our
discussions.  today we had a discussion which touched on the subject of death
and the choices involved in it.  now, when id taken a death and dying class
here for my health credit, it was a semi-cool class.  you had a diverse
group of people, all of which chose to be there to explore the dealing with
death process.  no, not everyone was overtly morbid, but there were enough to
offset the number of shiny happy people.
	GOD i hate shiny happy people. gimmie someone with a brain and an
attitude and a penchant for involved discussions and im a happy camper.  but
god save me from the vacuous shiny happy people.  and definitely save me from
your stereotypical, wide-eyed freshman and people that act like them.
granted, at 22, ive hardly live as long and varied enough a life to earn the
distinction of being called a "man of the world" but im probably jaded,
disillusioned enough to play one on tv (sorry, couldnt resist :)
	I guess what torques me so much about the shiny happy people is they
tend to avoid disturbing things.  they would much rather just brush it under
the rug than deal with it.  and i guess thats why i prefer the crispy people
(ie the people who wear black, whatever you care to call them.)  they tend to
explore things more, even be fascinated by the dark side.  ive also noticed
that a lot of them tend to make an attempt at being coldly rational and not
base their thoughts and actions soley on emotion.  most of the ones i hang out
with like to argue a point simply for the fascinating, explorative value of
it.  Whats more, though they may be dark, many recognize that, in the end, few
things can be assigned a binary value.  many things simply "just are" and cant
be objectively quantified beyond that.  but i digress...
	back to my class:  it's about 80% shiny happy people, me (i dunno
exactly where i fit in, but since i read this group, its probably not in that
80%), and a coupla others ive not been able to classify.  any way, the shiny
happy people dont seem to care about about even a semblance of objectivity and
dont seem to have heard of arguing from facts(/psuedofacts).  emotion is their
main argumentive appeal.  and, they love to label.  nothing can go without
having some value assigned to it (ie, this is good, thats evil, etc.)  its as
though they cant imagine the concept that something can exist without some
external value.  but again, i digress...
	today's discussion was a perfect illustration of this.  it was an
argument that concerned machine supported life and the value of life.  you
could tell they didnt like the subject and wanted to conclude that discussion
as soon as possible.  consensus, ugly to me, developed:  a person should
always be kept alive as long as technologically possible.  Just because some
of them felt that they didnt want the plug pulled on them in case of
catastrophe, it shouldnt be pulled on anyone else.  No matter the quality of
that life, everyone should be consigned to dependency on a machine.  their
reasoning was what particularly got me:  "what right have we to pull the
plug?"
	i was exasperated.  granted this is MY value judgement, but all i can
think in response to being consigned to life support is "WHY??!?"  i mean, they
didnt bother to think of the second question that naturally follows from the
one they used to justify keeping people alive by machine.  that question
being, what right have we to hook them up in the first damn place?  i dunno, i
guess its my own prejudice about what seems to be a most undignified way to
"live".  death, to me, would be quite preferable than the slow and inevitable
decay that life hooked to a machine guarantees.  better than having those
would feel compelled to visit me, watch as my body withered from disuse.
	this whole thing led into a discussion of suicide.  god what a joke.
it was like here:  you had a small cadre who felt it should be a choice, and
those who were against it for one or more reasons.  the second group feeling
compelled to offer personal stories of either how "it does get better" or
"wouldnt you feel bad knowing the hurt you did to those left behind". some had
had the experience of friends dying and that helped color things, but it was
still a condemnation of the act as a cruel, selfish act.  I mean christ, how
can they possibly make an informed judgment.  most had only the societal view
on suicide as their reference.  some at least had the experience of losing
people to suicide.  but noone, at least not that anyone owned up to, had been
on both ends of the proverbial stick.  that being the case, i can hardly see
how they can say what is and is not rational, cruel, etc. for the person
contemplating the act?  even having been on both sides, i still know im not
qualified to make those judgements about anyone but myself; about any
situation but my own.  never stops the shiny happy people, though.  all i know
is that suicide is neither cool nor uncool; rational nor irrational.  it just
IS.  
	and as far as their cruelty issue, sometimes the needs and desires DO
outweigh those of the many.  After all, for the person who does it, their pain
is pretty much guaranteed to end. [at least in this world, and without
bothering to get into a deep metaphysical discussion that probably wont end in
changed views, any way]  to those who would argue that it is selfish and cruel
to those left behind:  yes, it is.  but then, it's also selfish and cruel to
expect a person to continue to live in pain just so those that would be left
behind dont have to deal with the grief of the death.
	Sorta like the life support thing to, actually.  Keep the husk of a
body, and perhaps the mind, too, in an undignified state just to avoid dealing
with its death.  Grief subsides.  the pain that lead to the death doesnt
necessarily end untill that death.  So it becomes kind of a question of what's
the greater cruelty:  keeping someone alive and in torment just to satisfy the
not wanting to deal with a loss or a death that inflicts some temporary pain
that will eventually subside?
	oh well, considering how helter skelter this is and how much ive
rambled, im sure there'd plenty here to flame.  at the very least, it should
be a tad easier to see where im coming from.
	hasta...

-- 
Thomas H Jones II 			  "What can you do with a psych degree,
      aka.	                                            anyways?" --me
	thj@csn.org or  tjones@orville.psu.edu or tjones@vivaldi.psu.edu