The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-22
Suicide
sy DR. rnArn CRANE

Il am an old man, over seventy, writes | a man from Nebraska to me. T own nice little farm and am Financially well fixed, yet am very much dissatisfied On account of poor health and home trouble, life seems q burden to me. Suicide is uppermost in my mind. cannot get rid of it, much as try, yet the idea is horrible to me- My greatest trouble is poor sleep
 He wants me to tell him something that will help him. Alas! would that I could I know too well, however, that every mans cure is in his own hands. The soul is never freed from its meshes of misery except by it's own efforts.
 Suicide? It is the negation of the love of life. Whatever one says of life one says also of suicide, which Is the opposite of life.
 The object of all my preachment is to strengthen and make grow in health the life instinct. All have ever written is an anti dote for suicide.
 I want men to love the sun and the sea. little children and animals, each other and women. So long as one loves one wants to live, even if it's only pipe and glass. It is when all other desires die out that the desire for death, which is but the ash of desire, remains on the hearts heartllstone.
 To cure any man I would give him some thing to love, even a dog. -.
 Again suicide is a species of insanity, in this, that the mind is obsessed by one idea; it is, so to speak, driven into a corner by some one trouble or group of troubles; 1t is at bay, 1t cannot escape And the situation is peculiarly aggravated when one cannot sleep, for sleep is the greatest of all cities of refugee
 Almost every maniac is a monomaniac, and such a one is a suicide Some one thing, perhaps ill-health, social disgrace, financial ruin or the like, pursues pursues, pursues him, as a detective pursues the criminal.
 The only known way of escaping haunt ing idea is by diversion, that is, by occupy ing ones self with something else. The sui cidal mania is the paralysis of ones power to change the subject It is the abnormal, disease, fevered condition of ones power to concentrate the mind. ? If possible, therefore (1) work, work hard at something you ought to do, work until very tired; (2) play, at anything you can be absorbed in. games of cards. preferable " ing, golf, but whatever it is, play hard and outdoor amusements, such as fishing, hunt until exhausted; (3) go away, break up the regularity of life, in which the absorbing idea has got itself intrenched, plunge into the whirlpool of the city, or into the ad- c ventures of the wilderness, don't sit and die Hike poisoned rat iq.a hole"
 Just what is the right thing to do, you will never know. All yoI can do is to come as near to it as you car:. Examine your heart. Find what you love, or can love. Give yourself to it.
 Above all, seek to develop the highest, keenest form of. love known, that is, the desire to make some one else happy. De velop this desire, indulge in it. devote your mind. time and substance to it. For 1t is the most life-giving sentiment human being can have.
 Set about making the little children of your place happy, even some one little child. Hunt up the wretched. the down-and-out, the failures in your community, and undertake to help them, to be friend to them, not only to give them your money, but your at- tention. If it bores you keep it up till you learn to like it.
 This is the best known method of curing the obsessed soul of its mania. It is better to hunt souls than lions. 4 u
 For after all suicide is the climax of sell fishness it is self-attention, self-pity, self study, brought to the point of fever.
 Quit thinking of yourself. Think of others. Only 50 can the sore self become sane and sound. eo, MA
 "Sterne says that if he were in a desert he would love some cypress" writes Shelly. "So soon as the want of power to love is dead man becomes a living sepulchre of him. self. What is love? Ask him who lives what is life?' s$