What follows are a few thoughts on suicide based heavily on pages 77 through 79 of Walker Percy’s book Lost in the Comos. To acquaint some of you with the hard facts, life is hard and sometimes horrifically brutal. What can only be compared to hell is about a thousand times more common in this mortal reality than anything approximating heaven. As comedian Norm Macdonald said, “People commit suicide and people go, ‘I don’t understand why,’ and I go, ‘You don’t?! What, do you live in a cotton-candy house or something?… You don’t know about life?'” Suicide is a serious option and it’s easy to understand if we’re honest with ourselves (and haven’t been extremely fortunate).

Something interesting happens when we take suicide as the serious option it is. So, you kill yourself. What happens next? Well, whoever found you will call the authorities. Some EMTs and perhaps police will look at you. They may notify certain of your kin. The EMTs may crack a dark joke over you as they take you to the morgue. “Your fellow townsmen will have something to talk about for a few days. Your neighbors will profess shock and enjoy it. One or two might miss you, perhaps your family, who will also resent the disgrace. Your creditors will resent the inconvenience. Your lawyers will be pleased. Your psychiatrist will be displeased. The priest or minister or rabbi will say a few words over you and down you will go on the green tapes and that’s the end of you. In a surprisingly short time, everyone is back in the rut of his own self as if you had never existed.” (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos, p. 77)

Now suppose that, in light of that option, you choose to keep living. You are freed. Everything you do, big and small, becomes a free choice. Being alive is good. “You can eat at Denny’s, wear a hat, whatever you wanna do.” (Norm Macdonald) You have a better perspective on the whole gig and its many worries. You wonder what it’s all for. Maybe you will find out.