It's a hard thing to think about.

to claim you respect a person's right to choose, yet insist that you do not respect their right to commit suicide, which is a deeply personal and tragic decision, to me it often seems like hypocrisy. once upon a time i viewed suicide with much disdain, considering the ultimate form of weakness, the truest and most cowardly means of trying to avoid facing the rigors of life.

it wasn't until a friend, roosevelt, posed the stance that suicide, as a very hard choice, could mean the precise opposite, and that it was a choice only the strongest of souls had the courage to make, did i truly give it any measure of thought.

on one hand, i'm of the mind that it takes far more strength to face life, but...who am I to say such things? I have never entertained the notion of dying or death, let alone being the hand that delivers me to my own fate.

is suicide wrong or is society merely weaving it to be as a means to rid itself of the uncontrollable inconvenience that is losing potential contributors to its growth and development?

Forgive me, I am a simple man and a wanderer who enjoys musing over such dilemmas. I would like to enhance my own perspective on this matter by hearing various stances on the nature of suicide as a choice and if it is truly wrong to bar people from it, or if it is wrong to commit it.

as for me, I once held the view that it was truest weakness to commit the act. ironically i also held the view that a person's right to make a decision for themselves is paramount to their path in life, and that without choice we are no better than simple husks, that it takes a great measure of strength to make and stand by a decision. this of course was a contradiction, one my old friend helped me to recognize. now, quite frankly i don't know what stance to take on the matter. suicide is tragic, but in my opinion, it remains a choice. and as a choice, i cannot disagree with its right to exist, no matter how poor the decision may seem, in the end it is a person's right to make such a choice and i've no right to stand against it save for when it threatens my own life or limb.

But, as i said before, i am a simple man.