/lit/ - Literature

>>22246056
>Two Arms and a Head: The Death of Paraplegic Philosopher - Clayton Atreu

God this is one of the most disturbing things I've read. I read it about 6 years ago and it's really stuck with me. Thanks for writing your own thoughts!

The thing that stuck with me about his writing was that he said he wasn't interested in taking medicine to make him happier if he is only suicidal because of depression; he said that anyone who could be happy in his condition is not someone he sees himself as being continuous of consciousness with and would be the same as him killing himself anyway.

I always wondered, if you believe that taking antidepressants is "killing" you who would be unhappy paraplegic and replacing yourself with someone who is happy, why, when faced with the choices of his two "suicides", he chose the type of suicide that would give his family and friends a traumatic loss, with all the "could-I-have-said-something" stuff that comes with it. Why not choose the type of suicide that gave his family and friends a facsimile of himself, so they would be happy?

I understand that such decisions aren't always rational, and this to me seemed the most irrational part of it, for someone who wrote at such length and so eloquently at how rational / philosophical / logical / etc. he was.

>>22227902
>Raised my cock so high no other nymph could ever hope to live up to him