Planned Death by Choice

I stumbled into this true story - Young Couple Commit Death by Choice


A Brief excerpt from it:-
IT professionals 39/M and 36/F, hanged themselves in their fourth-floor apartment on October 3, 2011. They left behind a typed document, bequeathing their house and sparse belongings to Girl’s mother in Bangalore, laptop and iPod to their next-door neighbour’s six-year-old son, and a couple of printers to the housing society office.

On the table was a paid hotel bill of approximately Rs 8 lakh from Taj Vivanta in Panaji, where they had spent most of the last two months.

Next to it was a suicide note. “We have lived a very eventful and happy life together,” they had written. “We’ve travelled the world, lived in different countries, made more money than we ever thought possible, and enjoyed spending as much of it as we could on things that brought us joy and satisfaction. We believe in the philosophy that our life belongs to us and only us, and we have the right to choose to die as much as we have the right to live. We leave behind no debts or liabilities.” They’d left instructions that their bodies be disposed of in the government electric crematorium. “We have kept Rs 10,000 in an envelope for expenses. We are making this decision in our individual capacities.”

Their post-mortem reports showed no signs of any terminal diseases nor traces of any bravado-inducing drugs.

My observation:
They could be ahead of time. Death by Choice could be a great way in future. In terms of resource and life mgmt.
There is already or going to be a new Philosophy that sees the world in absolute realism - without adding mythical/imaginative/religious color to life (pardon my limited knowledge on this or help) making today's complex things very simple in tomorrow (IVF, Sperm Donation, Death By Choice, Sex Change, Mercy Killing)

What are your thoughts?

 

My first thought is: why do all of those words have to be capitalized? It sort of defeats the purpose of absolute realism.

Second, I don't quite understand why they chose to do what they did. Just claiming that you have the right to choose death doesn't exactly explain why you choose it. That said, I do believe it was their choice to make and I'm neutral on it. If they have family members who are suffering and in pain then I hope that they are able to find meaning in their death and move on. That's about all I feel about it. I don't see the potential for a new wave of enlightenment in preemptive suicide.

 

This kind of thing always bothers me. I don't believe in an afterlife, which makes suicide even more selfish in my eyes. At the same time, it always leads me to the uncomfortable philosophical conclusion that if free will exists, suicide is the purest expression of it; as a strict materialist I'm not sure how to process it.

The philosophical implications and intellectual considerations of them all go out the window after 30 seconds or so of thinking about it. At that point all I really know about it is my experience of losing a friend, and more than what it did to me what I saw it do to the rest of his friends and family. 30 seconds is about the longest I can go without starting to cry. This post took me almost 15 minutes to write.

 

I very we'll agree MM

Did you read the link too or only the excerpt? There is lot of insight into these people in the full article but if is very long though. I read that already twice

 

MSD selfishness in certain form can be a virtue. This article disturbed me very much. Personally I too didn't like it. But it gets interesting ( meaning valuable ) only when we detach from seeing it in the emotional sense we are all conditioned today to see birth and death.

Because there is equal amount of selfishness and pain in life too!

Sorry if it was hurting I wanted to hear from this sound and diversified group

 

I read the article but it makes a lot of assumptions and still doesn't explain much.

 

I tend to agree. Most of the time suicide is carried out by people in pain. Sometimes that pain can be ameliorated and I don't think it ever stops being a tragedy when people choose to stop living because they feel trapped and hopeless in a fixable situation.

 

I felt very upset reading it. But not disappointed. I especially felt upset that they left their body to be discovered like that... I would never do that.
--- merged: Oct 11, 2013 at 12:03 PM ---

I have a similar 'assumption' too! And if I read between the lines in the original article there are LOTS of signs.


But I personally had been in a place (time - oct 1999) when I felt absolutely good to go due to cheer satisfaction! And I knew I wont get to reach a place (time) like that again for long time. But I didn't windup.

Is this just me. People never feel like winding up because they were feeling so satisfied, blissful and complete!?

We only have a word for killing self due to pain... And we can only see killing self in that perspective
--- merged: Oct 11, 2013 at 12:13 PM ---

In most countries, mind is totally ignored. There is no health check for mind, no work outs or fitness training for mind. Chronic pain of mind is not treated with same attention as chronic pain in body.
I wonder whether someday chronic pain of mind will qualify for something like euthanasia?

 

Absolutely selfish. And he was very open about it during his school days! I did some research.
I also understand they were selfish. But their selfishness sounds like a virtue to me! There was no single soul in the entire inquiry to pass single negative mark on them. Everyone only expressed that they were weird.
I also think they wanted to windup while being young and fit - and never ever get in to a situation to depend on anyone else...

 

Does not compute.

This story is not complete.

 

No it is not complete. It is mystery.
He didn't have contact with his parents for 12 years - where he lived that is impossible

 

I think this story is less about progressive, enlightened choices and more about a couple of people who isolated themselves from other people and became obsessed with a concept. I don't think it's all that unusual, really. Suicide pacts are not an unheard of thing. Sure they had money and they did a lot of things, but that doesn't imply mental stability. Their lives were not full. They didn't engage other people. And I will take the plunge and assert that had they truly lived full lives including a more varied social circle, they never would have made this decision. Suicide doesn't make sense unless you are terminally ill or you are experiencing maladaptive thought processes. I guess you could say that's my opinion, but there it is.

 

Borla, I am so sorry
--- merged: Oct 11, 2013 at 7:25 PM ---

Yes I would like a discussion in that light
Things like birth (how we do it) and death (how we do it) right now is super sensitive. Could that get totally pragmatic in future.
Imagine people were killed or jailed for being homosexual just few decades ago!

 

Exactly! That is exactly the point about my earlier statement "But I personally had been in a place (time - oct 1999) when I felt absolutely good to go due to cheer satisfaction! And I knew I wont get to reach a place (time) like that again for long time."