“[L]earning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.”
The late David Foster Wallace, in a 2005 speech at Kenyon College.
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Obviously someone who does not practice what he preaches….
Krispy, more like that’s someone who is fully able to analyse his state while being unable to do anything about it.
You know what Beet? You inspire me in strange and weird ways. After I read your first post about this author’s suicide, I was shocked to discover that I had never read this dude. Being a writer myself, I was dumbfound. So, not but a few hours later, I found myself in a used bookstore. I found three of his books, one a first edition! I plan on reading his works now, thanks to you Ms. Lovely.
I feel so, so sad for this man. What a tragedy that he could find no other solution for his troubles.
DFW was one of my faves. A raving egomaniac, but also brilliant. What a terrible loss. I was actually pushing “Infinite Jest” on my boyfriend last week. I told him it was a must read if you only read 20 books in your life…. I’m bummed too.
Also – I have to say…. it irks me in some unexplainable way when people do a tsk tsk when brilliant but haunted people commit suicide… it’s such a petty smugness contrast against such an enormous force of life, wit, intelligence. There’s always people who do that, and that always bugs me….
^oops, sorry bout the grammatical errors above^ too sad to grammar check.
i read this whole post and not once did it mention how to tie a proper noose. do i need three loops and a knot or four. hurry, my chair’s getting all wobbly and shit.
Sadly, those with the greatest insight and knowledge are often that way because they are so close to the edge.
And anyone who is inclined to judge, tell me what you would do with intrusive thoughts that relentlessly tell you to kill yourself, deep depression and deep despair.
If you haven’t lived through it, best to keep your judgements to yourself.
I have lived through it. And there are other solutions. Suicide is a incredible sign of weakness.
Sans medication, I came out stronger and I didn’t hurt anyone… Don’t tell me you can’t barrel through it. Because I did.
I cannot pity the fool.
I am sorry if this offends you, Krispy, but true strength breeds compassion. Compassion is not weakness. Pity? Who wants it?
But Krispy, what you’re forgetting is the fact that David Foster Wallace will always carry a deeper magnitude towards the beauty of life and connections and shit that you will ever muster up your entire life, 20,000 times over. You can pity all you want, but most of us don’t really care.
Sure, Krispy, you made it (and without medication at that), and so that must mean that everyone who doesn’t is weak and pathetic.
With that sort of attitude, I assume you are also the type to roll your eyes at homeless people and laugh at those wussy little kids in cancer PSA’s.
Hey, I know a couple of people who survived cancer–they did it, so I guess everyone else who dies from cancer is a sucker. Get real. Chronic depression is a disease just like any other, not something you can “will” your way out of.
@Jamie: Prepare yourself for brilliance. I’m almost jealous of you. I remember when I first “found” him, I couldn’t get enough. Now I can’t find anything left of his that I haven’t read.
I agree with Canaduck. Krispy, a person who is willing to kill themselves is a person whose mind is not working normally. It is not your place to judge them, or mine, or anyone else’s. You came through a suicidal patch? Great! So did I. Great! This guy didn’t make it. Let’s not sneer over his illness or his loved ones’ loss. *That* is an incredible sign of weakness.
How about a little compassion and some human understanding? I hope the crustiness is not simply your defence against the return of such feelings in your own life.
yeah, let’s feel sorry for the guy. let’s feel sorry for the people he left behind to sweep up all the bullshit he left laying around, and let’s feel sorry for the person that had to walk in and find him and will always remember it, and let’s feel sorry for his parents if they’re still alive and brothers and sisters and kids and girlfriends. let’s feel sorry for selfish fucks like this guy that end their lives leaving everyone else to try to cope. let’s feel sorry for those that were too weak to persevere. not.