Existential Musings

[aeterna91]

I guess from an epistemological point of view, you can never know when the best time for a suicide is because you can never know what the future will hold.

However my point was more that "you're better to die at a high point when life is likely to get worse, than to die at a low point when life is likely to get better". Yet due to how our human psychology works, we generally only consider death when we are at the low point. Dying at the high point seems to be mathematically a better strategy.

I've seen something similar regarding choosing a house to buy, something that is not quite, but almost as high stakes. You'll never known which house is the "perfect" house that best satisfies your needs regarding size, location and cost. But logically you can find ways to decide that "now is the time to buy".

I overshot my mark in terms of having a "happy life". It's possible my life from here will have a moment where I'm happier than I was mid-2023, but probabilistically speaking, that's unlikely. So if I killed myself tomorrow, by waiting when my life was at its peak, I chose to subject myself to 18 months of suffering that was unnecessary. It probably also means that dying before prison is probably better than dying immediately after prison, unless I see prison as a net positive on my life.

It is possible that in the long term my life will somehow manage to improve. But if I reach 80 and my life has stayed shit all the way through, I'm really going to wish I'd cashed out earlier.

I see. Putting it that way, I suppose the best time to commit suicide would be the last great peak of happiness you're going to have in your life, just before you begin the final decline that you'll never recover from. At least, from a selfish perspective, without considering the fact that being alive longer might bring more happiness to other people, especially your loved ones (which, by the way, I think is something worth considering too).

However, I think it's more or less the same: the fact that you can't know if you'll ever be happy again is still there. So there's a dilemma there, and you have to make a bet. As you've put it, if you're going to be happy again, it's worth it to keep living; and if you're not going to be happy again, it's not. And, as I said before, given that you don't have an incurable, painful illness, or are quadriplegic or anything really extreme, I think the odds are in your favor: on that score, I think the chances of you being happy again are high enough. There are many, many people who manage to find happiness after going through a very difficult time. This is true, to give a few examples, even for people who don't have a family, people who have suffered some kind of amputation or lost their sight, people whose children have died, people who have suffered from depression for years... why wouldn't you?

Oh, by the way, I've met many people who've been in prison. People generally agree that it's not exactly a pleasant or positive experience, although there are some exceptions; but even those who did talk about it as a very negative experience didn't describe it as hell (many of them made good friends there... they had, at least, some good times during their time there). But the important thing is that, afterward, they got out. They served their time and were back on the outside, happy to be alive and ready to experience happy times in their lives again.

[Fragment]

Perhaps pre-prison freedom is different to post-prison freedom. But I’ve been “free” on bail for the last 12 months. But I still haven’t recovered from the 4 months I spent in a cage. I still haven’t recovered from the grief and loss first triggered 18 months ago.

And my depression and misery now is despite living in Japan with my family and not being on any kind of registry (technically no criminal record).

Japanese prisons don’t seem made for making friends. You’re typically not allowed to speak to other prisoners, need to keep your eyes down at all times, have to march everywhere and have 8 hours of forced labor a day. It’s not hell. But it makes military boot camp seem relaxed.

After prison I’ll be forcibly separated from my family, living in a country I haven’t lived in for 15 years with no money, no accomodation and no career prospects, probably on a public registry (if the right wing party wins the next election). It will objectively be worse than my life now and I’m already miserable.

I’m just so tired.

[aeterna91]

Oh, I'm sorry. There are details about your situation and the characteristics of Japanese prisons that I didn't know or remember. I would say that the "I think the chances of you being happy again are high enough. There are many, many people who manage to find happiness after going through a very difficult time. This is true, to give a few examples, even for people who don't have a family, people who have suffered some kind of amputation or lost their sight, people whose children have died, people who have suffered from depression for years... why wouldn't you?" part still holds, while I insist, it's important to recognize that your situation is also VERY painful and I cannot imagine it, I have not experienced anything like that.

It's sad that the prison system can be so cruel and receive so little criticism for it. Not allowed to speak to other prisoners... wow.

And yeah, definetily, pre-prison freedom is different to post-prison freedom. I suppose it's normal for the suffering to come to be worse than the suffering you've already gone through. This has a positive side, too: you have to be aware that things probably won't look as bad in the future as they do now. It's normal that you haven't recovered from the suffering of those four months in a cell... in fact, that 12-month hiatus, knowing that another two years await you in prison, is probably maximizing the suffering, because it's prolonging it. It's only afterward that things can start to get better (although, considering the way resilience works and the way people can, to a certain extent, "get used" to adverse situations, the last few months in prison will probably be much less painful than the first).