Talking About Taking One’s Life: A Small Meditation on Kindness

Talking About Taking One’s Life: A Small Meditation on Kindness July 26, 2015

(c) National Trust, Nostell Priory; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

A couple of postings in my Facebook feed are linking to an article about suicide intending to guide people from using the term “commit suicide” to saying “died by suicide.” The reasoning appears to be at least in part motivated by the fact the term comes from a time when suicide was a criminal act, and so, “committing” was meant in that sense. The subtext is that the survivors are having a hard enough time without having moral judgment thrown on top of the pile of sadness.

I’m all in favor of kindness. When in doubt, even when not in doubt, kindness is a pretty good option.

And, I will think about how I use the term, myself.

And. But. That spot where there is something more to say…

I have experienced two suicides in my immediate family, and as an adolescent I witnessed a serious attempt at suicide by another family member, not one of the two. These are hard facts that are a part of my history, and are a part of who I am as a person.

And, I can tell you among the many other true things about suicide, and there are many, one is that it is most of the time also an act of violence against the survivors. In most of these situations not intentionally. But in hard fact the consequences are a continuing cascade of sadness. And in these situations saying commit feels pretty accurate.

And to that extent, to pretty the act up with euphemisms or evasions is not always the most helpful thing. In my experience.

In another context entirely, twice in my recent experience I’ve been talking with people I know rather well, both of whom opined in passing how they try hard to be kind. In both cases, I was a little taken aback. Neither has ever in my experience been particularly nice, much less kind. Beyond our human capacity for self-deception, it made me think a little about kindness itself.

So what exactly is kindness? The Oxford English Dictionary says kindness is the “quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.”

I suspect there is a deep biological call for us as human beings to be kind. Not only is it a social lubricant, it is a necessary part of a group living together. Looking at the other apes I see acts of kindness are not limited to our species. And, probably for about the same reasons.

But, we have other factors going on in every encounter, so it is one impulse among those many, and we do not always act with kindness.

But, there is also, to use a Buddhist term, a “near enemy” of kindness. I think the word “nice” fits the bill. The OED suggests nice means “pleasant, agreeable, or satisfactory.” But, its common usage has rendered it to also mean trite. Think of the term “not making waves.” And, of course, “making nice…”

So, returning to the question at hand, how do we allude to suicide when it occurs among our friends or family, I suggest kindness is good, but nice is not. One aspires to usefulness, the other to avoidance.

And in such a high powered moment it can be very easy to slip into the avoidance category while telling ourselves we’re being kind.

Hard stuff. And no doubt when engaging in the hard conversation it is so so easy to go to the near enemy.

In my opinion it might be a missed opportunity.

Two cents on a Sunday morning…


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