Sports writer kills himself, leaves behind website describing how and why

To all those people advocating suicide please go kill yourselves. Oh wait, you don't want to do that? That is because you are not fucking crazy.

Please stop trying to justify the actions of people who are not mentally well - I suggest you help any of your friends that want to jump off a bridge to seek help from mental health professionals instead of helping them jump off that bridge.

It seems your error is in assuming that everyone that wants to end their life is crazy. That's an opinion (and a not very well thought out one). I personally know of a practicing psychologist that's in favor of it *at the least* in certain situations, and one in practicum that goes a tad further. And they are far from alone. You may think of the DSM as some holy psych bible, but here's a hint - each edition adds and subtracts conditions, and changes symptoms and metrics used to diagnose others. It's a guide of agreed upon understanding, whose changes are voted upon. Nothing more or less.

Stop being a douche because you simply can't understand something.

Sure, those instances exist.

I don't think this guy meets any of those conditions. He was a semi-successful 60 year old who just decided he didn't want to get any older. Fear and despair drove that decision, no matter how rational that fear or how empirically well founded that despair.

He rejected hope. That in itself... well, whatever. It doesn't really bother me. We all reject hope. It's a continual struggle. That's just life. But he rejected hope without cause, and that's nothing but arrogance. Terminal arrogance in this case. He murdered himself in the first degree. I guess someone could spin that as some sort of Noble Nihilism if they wanted to. They would be wrong in claiming this event as anything besides a failure.

Unless buried somewhere in his suicide novella is an actual reason for him to have been irrevocably despondent. Like I said, I stopped reading it shortly after not finding one because I don't see philosophical rationalizations for suicide as something that requires my attention. Frankly it's just insulting when suicides write more than, "I'm tired. Goodbye Cruel World". Which from what I did read seemed to be what he was saying.

Tuco_sl said:

I think a lot of people in this thread lack perspective on how frightening it is to get old. Like, truly old.

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60 isn't truly old.

Anyway, his life, his body. His choice.

Tuco_sl said:

I think a lot of people in this thread lack perspective on how frightening it is to get old. Like, truly old.

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Because 60 is ancient? This guy was a pussy. I have zero respect for people that can't deal with life. Life sucks for all of us at times. Deal with it.

Lyrical_sl said:

Because 60 is ancient? This guy was a pussy. I have zero respect for people that can't deal with life. Life sucks for all of us at times. Deal with it.

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obviously he did deal with it.
Denial is not dealing with it.

Everyone dies. get over it.



60 certainly seems a bit early. But we don't exactly know his personal situations.
Ending on your own terms seems like a better idea then dragging around, and just randomly dropping and leaving a mess of finances, decaying body, etc.
Hell, just living alone creates a mess, as the stories of pets eating owners bodies often attest.

tad10_sl said:

Having known children, wives and friends of people who have done something similiar - I'm going to go with screw him. Suicide screws them all up, especially the kids. Tolerance of suicide is not a good thing.

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Parents are dead, not married, no kids, a brother and sister who he felt would understand, and neither of them had kids, and his friends who, as he says, wouldnt have been his friends if they werent analytical enough to understand it. Perhaps pre-judging isnt a good thing either?

tad10_sl said:

I'd say that categorically anyone choosing to commit suicide probably falls under the DSM-IV definition of clinically depressed or other problematic mental condition. Oh there may be some exceptional perfectly sane Vulcan-like decision made by someone, sometime, somewhere, but I doubt it.

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Perhaps you should read his site then, since he went to all the trouble to write it out for you?

Caliane_sl said:

obviously he did deal with it.

Everyone dies. get over it.

60 certainly seems a bit early. But we don't exactly know his personal situations.

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Er, we do know his personal situation, thats PRECISELY why he left the website, and paid it up for the next five years. Perhaps you could read it?
Short version, physically he was just fine, but he could feel his mind going, and wanted to die on his own terms and without being a burden while he was still able to make the choice, and he didnt have anything special to live longer for, like a wife or children, which he says would have changed his decision. He even went to the trouble of doing it in the far corner of a police station parking lot after calling them to let them know about it, so the mess would be easy to clean up, and nobody untrained for that kind of thing would find the body.

quote from his quotes section:

?Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live? ? Charles Caleb Colton

tad10_sl said:

Everybody, or almost everybody, goes through down periods, some people go through major depressions. If we let people kill themsevelves just because they feel bad a lot of people would be dying long before they should. I'm opposed to abortion, suicide and the death penalty - not because there aren't any criminals who don't deserve to die, or that someone grappling with a painful wasting cancer deserves to endure that pain until he naturally pops off, or because the odd girl isn't getting pregnant from daddy or Mr. Rapist, but because we can't draw grey areas so if the only thing we can do is draw a bright line, then I'm going to side on keeping shit alive, versus letting it die.

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Why should anyone but them decide when "they should" die? Why should a person be obligated to put off, at their own expense and inconvenience, a pain that will be felt anyway by others when they die? Whose life is it anyway? Also he started thinking about this seriously almost 2 years prior, and contemplating it in 2004. While I agree temporarily destraught people shouldn;t be allowed to commit suicide, that does not apply to him and a clearly thought out plan to kill oneself is IMHO a just expression of Free Will as long as you don't hurt anyone else (physically) in the process.

Tuco_sl said:

I think a lot of people in this thread lack perspective on how frightening it is to get old. Like, truly old.

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I'm in my 30s and I consider suicide every time I wake up with a sore back or hip.

Grimmlokk_sl said:

I'm in my 30s and I consider suicide every time I wake up with a sore back or hip.

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What happened to you Grim? I'm 32 and have no clue what a hurt hip feels like.

How the fuck exactly do you punish people who want or try to commit suicide? I watched my grandmother waste the fuck away from Alzheimer's and it was 100 times scarier then cancer ever can be. If I have the choice of going out gracefully then being a burden on my family and society I will take suicide thank you very much.

I can't be the only person who saw the title and hoped it was Skip Bayless that offed himself can I?