The Vernal Paradox

The first day of Spring is always one of my favorite annual milestones. Mostly this is because I loathe the Winter – especially the New England variety – and though the 20th of March is almost always grey and cold, the vernal equinox symbolizes the advent of warmer weather and longer days. Ironically, it symbolizes for many of us the triumph of light over darkness when in reality it actually means “equal night” – that is, a day of the year where the length of night and the length of day are equal. So today the seasons are in a stalemate, and though it is a fact that the gains in daylight will come but incrementally as we move inexorably around our Sun, paradoxically it does always feel to me that we truly are Springing forward in a giant leap when we reach this milestone on the (solar) calendar. Never more so than this year, when Spring couldn’t come soon enough. It wasn’t the weather that brought me down this Winter, however, it was all the death….

I knew things were bad when in January I was attending my fourth wake in eight days. As if the gloom of perpetual cold, clouds, rain, and snow wasn’t enough, it seemed the world was covered by some kind of depressed fog that didn’t want to lift. I watched as people lost fathers, and grandmothers, grandfathers, and friends. But nothing hit me harder than losing my good friend Tim, who took his own life at his wife’s grave two years after she lost her battle with cancer. I won’t go into the details, but I learned that the process of dealing with suicide is unique and insanely complex. It is obviously a time of overwhelming grief and sadness, but unlike other losses, with suicide you have to deal with anger simultaneously with sorrow; you find yourself defending a friend against words from those who didn’t know him while at the same time questioning how well you really knew him yourself; you feel great empathy for your friend and sympathy for his children and family, all the while struggling with guilt and shame as you wonder if you missed any warning signs or could have been there more for him while he was here. In the end, you realize that what happened was the result of irrational thought and that the traditional reaction to suicide – that it is a selfish act – is completely bogus. Psychologists have shown time and again, from discussions with those that are unsuccessful in their attempts to kill themselves, that they thought their families and friends would be better off without them. Actually, my company had an open session yesterday talking about the facts of suicide and how to deal with it, and it was great to hear so many myths dispelled about the topic. And to see that there is hope ahead in the struggle against suicide, as evidenced by the growing coalition that participates in the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk campaign run by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Having said all of that, what struck me most about my friend’s death – after getting past the grief as best I could – was just what a paradox the act of suicide itself is. That a living being would consciously make the choice to stop being alive is something I can’t quite reconcile in my mind, and maybe I’ll never be able to. It got me thinking about this and other examples, which I’ve shared below:

• We don’t know a lot about the rules of biology, at least not in the way we do with things like physics, mathematics, and chemistry. In my studies of biology and ecology, I have learned to boil it down to one rule above all others: The goal of an individual is to live long enough to reproduce. This survival instinct in humans is supplemented by a cognitive ability and self awareness, which has added “the fear of death” to a simple “will to survive”. Some might argue that this new phenomenon – the fear of death – is what resulted in the creation of religion and the belief in an afterlife, but that’s a topic for another day. What amazes me, then, is that any living creature can choose to end its life. It’s body will struggle to live even as its mind tells it to give up. It goes against everything I know of biology, and I guess it is a testament to just how complex the human mind is.
• Speaking of which, it strikes me the human body and its systems are very well understood…from the neck down. We get an annual physical to check up and intensive care when we are subjected to bodily trauma. Our brains, however, are what make us really human. And we don’t have any grasp on how it works! Psychologists study the symptoms and manifestations of problems, but are just scratching the surface of the mechanisms at work. However, if a person goes to a psychologist, everyone assumes something is wrong with him. Can you imagine an 80-year-old man telling you he has never been to a doctor? You’d be appalled! “What? You have to go, now!” If you heard that he had never been to a psychologist, you’d think, “that’s great, he must be well adjusted”. So we have a whole system to monitor and treat the human body that is so easy to understand, but approach the treatment of our most complex organ with stigma and embarrassment. Huh.
• US military spending – including past debt and veterans benefits – is over 50% of the annual budget. For aggression or defense, this is money spent to end lives. We spend 30% on human resources – much of that health care – which has the aim of saving lives. Most will tell you that the military is for defense, not attack. So we spend tremendous sums of money on lethal weapons in an effort to save lives?

I could go on for hours about this, but I have a day job I need to get back to. I invite comments and additional examples if you are so moved. Above all else, I wish everyone a happy Spring….may it be brighter than the season just past!