chalambok

As ever, I am curious about the depths of our soul. Can a martial artist, for whatever reason, consider and justify suicide? Or must we "carry on; and do; and try; for those sleepers of the forever dark" who die for us so we might "fly, ever true and pure of heart?"

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Garland

Curious post.
For a true martial artist, and a true fighter, I'd say no.
If it were about 200 years ago, and you were Japanese, than there might be a reason, but because of the end of the sort of servitude and master/retainer relationship that went along with it, there is no need for a martial artist to commit suicide.
The way of a warrior should be to live, and to try and validate one's existence through one's actions; in other terms, to be of use to somebody, or some cause, and to dedicate one's life to the perfection of self in order to fully accomplish ones goals and the mastery of one's dreams and ambitions.

In other words, you need to find something to fight for, or something to fight.
Think of all of the greatest martial artists and fighters, not just the modern MMA guys, but those that were before, that dedicated themselves to their arts and their way with a monastic type of zeal and immense fortitude.

Bruce Lee, Mas Oyama, Ginchin Funakoshi, Helio Gracie, etc.
And before them, Sasaki Kojiro, Miyamoto Musashi, etc etc.

I highly doubt those that came to this level of their art would even commit ritual seppuku even if it were asked of them, due to a higher and more profound understanding of life, and the impact one has on others.

Even the most unremarkable person in existence has validity to their life, and they make a difference, no matter how miniscule, to others in their lives.

You'd be shocked at how the tiniest, most seemingly trivial thing in the world that you do or say to someone can affect their life.

But...I hear you, bro, New Years sucks, just figure that most holidays are anti-climactic, and after all, tommorow's a new beginning.

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homo homini lupus

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HtTKar

Garland,
wise post. well thought out, and more informative than it appears.

chalambok,
your post has the answer. Notice theres a great quote about living on so that others dreams may come true in you? I cant imagine very many famous posts that justify suicide.

Some things are greater than an individual. If my family was captured, and I could ensure their safety by becoming a suicide bomber, then yes take me.

__________________
"The harder you train, the harder it is to surrender"
(Vince Lombardi)

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eXcessiveForce

could suicide be justified, sure. Anything can be justified.

Samuri justified it.
If you disgrace yourself in some fashion you may be able to justify it. An old instructor of mine molested children, if he commited suicide instead of hurting kids it would have been a justification.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

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Khun Kao

Since when does being a "martial artist" place one on a pedestal that is above the problems faced by everyone else?

Martial arts study does not make us special. It makes us more capable fighters. But it doesn't make us better people.

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GCA MuayThai Board of Advisors
USMTA Director of DC, MD, and VA
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KZL

Interesting thread. Yes, all people may consider suicide. In fact, all people consider many things that they never do. (warning inductive reasoning there, which is to say that all people of whom I am aware.)

khun kao, you have presupposed that considering suicide makes a person somehow "lesser", or that this way implied on chalambok's post. I don't think that implication was necessarily intended, more of an intellectual quandry. Justification of such an act is moot, as to whom are you justifying the taking of your own life besides yourself? If you have other important people in your life, they may well be a reason to continue living. If you don't, then you owe noone an explaination.

I personally think that all martial artists need to be able to deal with pain, as it is inevitable, but that's not the same as requiring a martial artist to willingly accept pain. For instance, I don't ask people to break my arm on a regular basis. I avoid getting my arm broken because I don't feel the need to have that pain in my life.

So I'd say yes they can consider suicide, and even justify it to themselves or others.

thanks for the useless ponder time, I enjoy it.

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Keith Z. Leonard

"hey, is that my toe over there??"

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fugetsu

I remember something that Chalambok said before, "There's no such thing as an easy fight." You go through your 6 weeks of training camp before the fight, go to bed the night before, flip and flop getting no sleep, wake up and go to the stadium, dress down, warm up, walk from the dressing room to the ring, and get in, all the way trying not to throw up. Now, there's nothing easy about getting to this point. Even if you KO the guy in the first 30 seconds with your first right-cross, compared to an all-and-all out brawl, trading punches, kicks, knees, and elbows until the final bell, barely sqeeking out a split decision, the 30-second win is not easy. Nothing is easy. So, for a Thaiboxer, everything is tough: the training, the fighting, the injuries, and the healing. So, as a Thaiboxer, there is no justification for suicide. Even if you were diagnosed with a terminal illness, jumping off a bridge to avoid withering away on your death cannot be justified. It would be your job to show everyone how to die with dignity, like a warrior. Again, for the warrior, no easy outs.
my two baht
Fugetsu

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Python

Ok, I haven't been on this board too much the past few months, let alone made any posts of my own, but I feel compelled to reply to this thread because of my experience.

First of all, my whole life I could not understand why someone would get to the point in life of considering suicide to be necessary, or the easy way out of the pain they were in. Then just out of high school, my then close friend hung himself because his step-father (the only father he knew) passed away and left him nothing in the will. Well, I got pissed, and hurt both. NO way could I see that as a reason to kill myself...life itself is too good, even when it is bad.

That was a year out of school while I was away in the Marine Corps. Since then I have devoted my life to the martial arts (well, mostly...lol). Then it happened...in 1997, my wife wanted a divorce (we had two kids who meant the world to me). Right away there was a new guy in the picture who was now seeing my kids wake up each morning instead of me!! I went crazy!! I was not sleeping at all, not focusing at work, an emotional wreck to say the least!

I am getting to my point, stay with me here....keep in mind, by this point in time, I had been in the martial arts for several years. My job put me in front of heavy mixing machinery that would literally 'eat' you if you didn't pay attention to what you were doing. For the first time in my life, I knew what went thru the minds of those who were suicidal. I said to myself many, many, times at work: "what if I just jumped into the mixer? It would all be over in about 2 seconds and the pain would go away." Ya know, things like that went thru my head so many nights at work.

What kept me alive was not the fact that I was a martial artist. It was that I had martial arts to look forward to and it was the "life skill" training that kept me focused on the future. I knew once work was over I could go kick the shit out of a heavy bag, or my buddy would be there to spar with, if I needed it. My Karate classes I teach center around 5 words: Attitude, Discipline, Respect, Focus, and Confidence! These are the life skills that I fell back on to keep me going thru a time in my life that appeared to be very, very dark.

Now this could be said for anyone who has an activity for an outlet. If you are an avid basketball player, then put your time into that to take away the pain of what you are going thru. It goes the same for other sports and interests as well.

So, yes, martial artists CAN consider suicide...and yes, anything can be justified in a person's mind. But it takes a Positive Attitude, Strong self Discipline, Self Respect, Total Focus, and a high level of Self Confidence...with these 5 life skills in tact, anything can be accomplished. So being a martial artist, if your training involves life skills to some degree, equips you with the ability mentally, emotionally, spiritually, to overcome the tendancy to commit suicide, regardless of how bad the situation may seem.

Well, that is my take on this subject. I hope it was not too windy. I tried to be short and not go into detail. Moral of the story: Life is too good! NO matter how bad it may be for you, someone out there has it worse. So, enjoy life and all that it throws your way. Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!

Semper Fi!

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Harry

Having a mental illness such as BPD or Manic depression can easily lead to feelings of suicide that are extremely difficult to overcome.
With BPD you simply have a low amount of serotonin in your blood, basicly a chemical emitted by your brain into the bloodstream that creates feelings of happiness, now people with BPD often have side symptoms that run alongside low levels of serotonin, such as low self esteem, mistrust, difficulty opening up to people, difficulty in general social situations.
Speaking from my own experience and having BPD after about two years of waking up feeling terrible, sick of having to cut myself to control my pain, and quickly running out of people to talk to, suicide becomes a very dark but somewhat appealing option, in the same manner that a wasp stings itself to quicken its death. Now, with BPD, I could not get over these feelings the same way you would eventually overcome the breakdown of a relationship or some over event, no matter how perfect my life could be, I'd always have the same low levels of serotonin and the same side issues that would drag things down. I tried medication but as many people know, the first month of anti-depressants actually increases suicidal tendancies. Exercise can increase happiness, but very few people have the energy to exercise everytime they feel down. I will have to frown upon your statement of "No matter how bad it is for you, someone always has it worse", whilst this may be true, It is not a valid arguing point.
For example, Would that argument stand up logically when talking to someone who had been abused as a child? The argument ignores that subjective levels of misfortune do not level out an individuals misfortune, Someone abused as a child who was raped, does not make a lighter abusee victim feel any better about what has happened to them.
Whilst telling people to chin up e.t.c. can be valid to someone with a normal level of serotonin, it cannot be applied to people who cannot adequatly alter and maintain their happiness, the same way a cancer patient cannot be called weak for not beating cancer themselves.
Just thought I'd add my own experience.

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ryangruhn

Unfortunately we can't ask the people who know. I have heard of more then a few accomplished martial artists taking their own lives.

Gruhn

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---DURATTAN ~ "THE MOST DURABLE RATTAN STAND-IN" ---

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bodhisattva

Suicide.

Suicide has nothing to do with whether you are a "strong person" or a "better person" or not.

It has to do with chemicals in the brain. It has to do with families that are never together - parents always working and always tired. It has to do with a world so divided that everyone is an individual, alone. It has to do with corrupt government and cultures inflicted with double-bind instructions.

But it has nothing at all to do with whether one is a "strong person" or a "better person".

Harry: thanks. that has the ring of truth to it.

It is difficult to tell whether some people have BPD or if they are just more honest in their everyday descriptions about how we live life. It is funny how many BPD people are above the "genius" level of intelligence.

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ryangruhn

I think in the context of "mental", strength has a lot to do with it.

Gruhn

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---DURATTAN ~ "THE MOST DURABLE RATTAN STAND-IN" ---

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Garland

Could be...or it could be the opposite.
If someone has enough strength in their convictions to decide and implement such a permanent and grave act upon themselves, then they certainly have something in the terms of mental strength and toughness...however misguided it may be.

Sometimes life is hard, and it's incredibly difficult to be optimistic, and in some scenarios, it could be considered naive to think that things will eventually either come to a head or fade away naturally, and many people simply get by day to day in the hope of coming out on top of whatever their present ailments are. I also seem to think, and this is MY personal opinion, and as I am not a sociologist nor a psychologist, I tend to think that people who are fully engaged with task or survival, or anything be it remotely different from facing the prospect of their troubles in their minds tend to do better in the throughes of depression. This, again in my opinion, is why those struggling to survive don't commit suicide as often as those who have the luxury of pondering and worrying about their lot in life.

Of course, introspective and introverted people tend to do nothing much more than peruse their own lives and be so caught up in worrying or daydreaming about this or that, that they tend to lose real time, and be caught up somewhere else, rather than the "now".

My advice for anyone suffering from depression is to not lie to themselves, but to not give in either. Simply finding an outlet or an activity to keep occupied and keep your mind off things is great, so is seeking some sort help for your problems (not just psychological, but practical, ie if you have a problem with something, to confront it, rather than worry about it), making you feel more accomplished and in control of yourself.

Suicide is sometimes thought of as an "easy" way out. Nothing could be farther from the truth, there is absolutely NOTHING easy about suicide.
Everyone, at one point or another, falls prey to depression or falls upon hard times, or seemingly insurmountable difficulty, but no matter what, there is always a chance to come out alright, albeit, not necessarily unscathed and in one piece (financially, physically, and mentally), but it is possible, and of course, where there is a will, there is most often a way.

I may not know a great deal about psychology, how to "properly" adress this topic, but I do know human suffering, and how people can easily fall from grace and hit absolute rock bottom, because I've seen it happen to many people close to me, and I've got some pretty terrible horror stories to tell, you can never under-estimate the depths of human depravity and cruelty, and on the flip side, human perseverance, and benevolence.


Hope I've been of some help.

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homo homini lupus

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Jeremy Lobdell

Awesome post Garland, I couldn't agree more!

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"If you want to learn to fight, you must practice fighting against someone who is fighting back!" Burton Richardson

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Garland

I'm sorry, I passed up the mental illness part on the thread, completely missed it, because I tend to read the last posted segment first, my bad.

For those that suffer from BPD, or Mania,

or clinical depression (my personal struggle)...etc, sometimes medication (which in my opinion should ALWAYS be accompanied by therapy) is the only way to be able to cope with daily life.

I managed to get through what I think is the worst of mine without meds, but I did recieve therapy for a number of years, and it definitely helped for awhile, but at a certain point, you have to try and branch out away from it.

I haven't been to a session for probably a good year. (for myself, at least, I have attended friends CA, NA, and AA meetings to keep them company, as well as stood outside an in-patient program to keep them company in their free hours.)

I think what helped me out the most was about a two years of pretty grim life experience, wherein I realized everyone has baggage, some just pack it tighter, whereas others carry it openly, and some can keep better control of theirselves and have a better grasp of future opportunities that could be either ended or denied them based upon their choices. Fear of failure is a good detterant, it is when a person reaches the "I no longer care about anything" that the true drama and true problems start to arise.

I'm starting to ramble, I hope it makes some sense, to summarize my point,
if you think you need meds, go to a psychologist and see a counselor...
if you're too prideful, figure something out, but try and not lose faith in what could be, don't be stubborn about how bad things are ) don't awfulize.
And don't self medicate with other drugs and the many other things that aren't the way to bettering your situation...i.e. anything with lowered inhibitions. Have your wits about you if your depressed...
I know, it sounds kind of contradictory.

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homo homini lupus

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