My Suicide Note

This isn’t real. It’s similar in nature to writing your own eulogy. It’s an exercise in thinking about what an end of life decision might look like and what would lead me to a decision of that nature.

I find that much of my motivation stems from thinking about death and sex. There are things that I feel should be accomplished before I die and when I wake up and focus on what needs to be done before I can die in contentment, it focuses and motivates me. That’s the heart of my accomplishment-based motivation.

Sex is often the main or greatest hedonic pleasure in life that drives me (with novel, exciting experiences being a close second) and so I write and think a lot about it, mostly indirectly, by examining its relationship to hedonism and well-being.

Between desire satisfaction and goal satisfaction, it’s really only unaccomplished goals that wave off death. I don’t really believe that unsatisfied desire for pleasure would be a huge loss if an early death occurred, but do feel unsatisfied positive accomplishments would be a loss - mainly for others still living who wouldn’t receive benefits.

This can be summarized as, “While we’re here, enjoy some pleasure and before we go, do some good.” An even shorter summary is, “Be good and enjoy.”

So here is the suicide note that will never be written (too much to be accomplished!), but which bangs around in my mind each day to some extent.

To Whom It May Concern,

I harbor no malice or blame for you. This is not your fault and you did not cause it. There is no cause. You only try to do what you feel is best and avoid suffering yourself.

There is no self and so there is no will. In a sense, this means there was no “I” that decided to end my life any more than a “you” that has decided to remain alive.

Feelings become emotions that become desires that often turn into goals and we all go around and around this wheel of suffering as these desires and goals are subverted or denied. But these desires and goals are not “us”. We can detach from them. All of them.

In a real sense, I believe the end of my life marks the achievement of nirvana. I am able to end my life comfortably in the same quiet enlightenment and peace of the Buddha, desire finally extinguished in a state of complete non-attachment - even to life. This follows from discovering truth and thereby moving beyond the causes of suffering.

I could remain, continue existing. I would do so only in so far as I aimed to help others achieve the same state of liberation. This is a final desire that has, alas, been let go of and so I no longer have a reason to exist. I will disappear into nothingness, nonexistence.

I wish the very best for you, knowing you won’t find it. Knowing you will continue to delude yourself into believing your life is, on balance, more full of joy and happiness than it is of suffering. I hope you are right and that your life is full. Find joy and hold onto it. I have my own joy, even if you don’t see it.

With all my love and compassion,
Kyle