I learnt of death when I was 6. My favorite granduncle passed away suddenly. I felt empty, and in the midst of all the hassles of the funeral, I successfully sneaked past my family and wandered around. Strangely, my little feet carried my absent-minded body 3km to the graveyard. It was peaceful. There was a lot of shade, and the sun was shinier than ever that day. I sat there until sunset, then sneaked back home. I didn’t cry. I just smiled the whole time. It became a habit of smiling to hide grief. Or maybe I just didn’t really feel grief.
I smiled when I learnt that my grandmother passed away. My cousin was there, and he looked at me strangely while asking, “Are you really smiling? How can you even be smiling?” I didn’t know. I couldn’t cry. What else did I suppose to do? I learnt that death is inevitable. It would come sooner or later and take away all your dears and beloved. If death is the logical and acceptable ending of a person, then there is no reason for you to be sad and regretful over it.
Then I learnt of less inevitable deaths: suicides. My first girlfriend committed suicide. One of my closest friends did too. Then another one. All three had their own lives’ choices to make, I should not make their choices about me. But I do anyway, for who I am but a mere selfish human being.
The fourth time was a charm. I finally had a friend (albeit not a closed one) who failed his attempt. For some time, I was strangely obsessed with his story. I visited him every Sunday at IMH (the Institute of Mental Health), which became one of my favorite places in Singapore. I talked to him, trying to figure him out. It was a fruitless effort and in the end, I just realized how terrible I was as a person. I didn’t care if he failed or not. I just wanted to know why. Curiosity is indeed a sin.
I played around with that thought too. If death is inevitable and you can make a choice to take the express ticket, then rationally why shouldn’t you? This was me some years ago, so indeed I made a very careful plan. I considered many options, most particularly how and where. And of course ignoring the why. The “why”s were no fun.
Some days ago, I came across all the research I did while cleaning up my old hard drive. I recalled how it was one of my favorite personal projects. I learnt so much from it. There was useless trivia such as not to use an ice knife, it wouldn’t be able to penetrate your skin well. If you want to have the weapon disappear, use an ice club as a blunt weapon. Ever since learning that I laughed whenever there would be ice swords or other weapons in fantasy series.
I also learnt more about Vietnam’s places of interests. I never had a strong desire for travel, so all the knowledge about good places in Vietnam I had was most likely from this research. But I delayed the plan several times. There was that manga I had been following for a long time and seemed to end soon. Then I was waiting for the result of the Obama re-election. I followed it closely and didn’t want to miss the ending. Then I wanted to finish a fund-raising project first. I was also waiting for the 20-year anniversary of my favorite musical. There was just never a good time to die since something seemed to be waiting for me around the corner.
Out of curiosity, I also went to counseling. I meant it was free when I was a student, and after all those books and online research, who would be better to ask than a professional who dealt with suicidal people frequently. The counselor however didn’t think it was a good research topic and I had to visit him 3 or 4 times for evaluation. He also informed the school (which I thought was kind of fucked up since it should be a private matter and he was not supposed to betray doctor-patient trust). However, aside from that, I enjoyed those occasions, though my counselor thought it was mainly the stress of the final year. He cleared me anyway. I was thankful.
I don’t think much of that nowadays. I still find it a mystery how people want to end their lives. I know it’s a serious matter, but I stop trying to make a rational argument for it. The counter argument for me and me only though is simple. There is just too much around the corner for me. Yeah, who says that FOMO is always bad?