Ego Death

“Row row row your boat gently down the stream;

 Merrily,

 Merrily,

 Merrily,

 Life is but a dream.”

—Nursery rhyme

“I must insist on being a pessimist/ I’m a loner in a catastrophic mind”

— Green Day, ‘Armatage Shanks’

Genetics load the gun and environment pulls the trigger; is a fanciful phrase for the argument between nature and nurture synthesized into its working components. It goes to explain, in simple analogy, that people’s nature is understood and acted upon by their nurtured habits. Another way of putting this issue into an understandable description is it’s free will vs. instinct. 

Will is based on instinct; people’s instincts direct their will. Typically, these surround base needs— or at the very least can be traced from a few innate traits, the three f’s. Feasting, fighting and fucking. These drives all originate in one simple prerogative found in any living species: survival. Self-preservation. The denial of death.

Homo sapiens are the only species which shows a distinct and notable capacity for suicide. Well, sort of. To say that behavior that can be likened to self-destructive in primates and other species isn’t observed would be untrue. However such instances are most, if not in every case from domestic, caged environments. That, “most experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest,” noted Emma Goldman, then connecting that, “With human nature caged in a narrow space, how can anyone speak of it today […] wounded and maimed?” 

That the human species is a caged creature, is unarguable. On some level it’s an open unconscious secret: the word ‘civil’—as in civilization— comes from Sanskrit and Celtic meaning ‘to have fallen’. Like any caged animal, we are not in our own element as totally as we could or should be. In that, some instincts that are constant on some level thrive throughout species and setting. Constants that confirm condition. Underlying it all is the tendency towards personal preservation. So, why do some people kill themselves?

The development of self-awareness was an instrumental as well as monumental evolution in consciousness. No other species we observe contains such a capacity, however in that comes the knowledge of our own mortality. “This awareness of death is the downside of human intellect. If you think about this for a moment, death awareness presents each of us with an appalling predicament; it even feels like a cosmic joke. On one hand, we share the intense desire for continued existence common to all living things; on the other, we are smart enough to recognize the futility of this fundamental quest. We pay a heavy price for being self-conscious.” The majority of our thoughts and actions as a result of this are done in order to avoid thought about dying. Death discomforts on a simple biological imperative. 

To objectively lay out why people kill themselves is impossible. We only have ourselves for comparison. With that, we have the ones that do end up ending their own life. Survivors even report a fight for life during an attempt; though others sometimes still succumb to the impulse even if they live through one. 

People are catastrophic daydreamers. There is a consistency of being ‘trapped in one’s own head’ when it comes to suicide. That would on some level explain why even if in the process of attempting suicide, most have to be out of their own heads via chemical means in spite of feelings. The denial of death is constant, even if in the enactment of dying. In fact, much of the time, people who commit suicide (by their own implications) tend to believe in some sort of continued detached existence thereafter. It’s escaping a perceived nightmare for nothing; a complete break from everything. 

Though, to call it a dream is rather a misnomer. It’s escape from a dream one is often too awake for. To these people, it’s to not live a life of behind the living dead. 

Environment influences how one lives according to their instincts. Some people merely go through preprogrammed motions and thoughts for some 60-80 years then kick the bucket. Take that how you will, but such is applicable in a multitude of ways be it regular schedules and cycles in life that come about regardless; or generational abuse and trauma and soul-sucking stagnation of some sort. Something in this life cycle which has an impact on the individual’s sense of self esteem, as that is, “what protects people from their deepest fears,” and, “they will do just about anything to get it. The pursuit of self-esteem is a driving force behind just about everything people want in life.” Even wanting to die. 

Long story short, it’s ego fulfillment. Environment affects ego, naturally. While, “many of us will fight to preserve our self preservation in the same way that worms or bats will fight to stay alive […] because self esteem is our symbolic protection against death.” But for the suicidal, it is the symbolic protection of death that gives self-esteem, comfort. It’s an escape; a release. No one is more cheerful than someone about to die on their own terms after living mechanically for so long— just remember the smile. You won’t forget it.