The Note

"Death is an inevitable certainty, and the strongest of all forces.

To whom it touches: it brings relief and eternal rest.

To it’s friends: it brings pain, sadness and grief.

To it’s enemies: it brings happiness, joy and exaltation. 

Thus making it the only entity which could start or end, anything and everything."

The date is November/ 13th/ 2020. It's quite a grim winter evening, suitable for a Friday night. Rainy as always in this season, with a bit of sadness that accompanies the both ominous and auspicious sound of raindrops on a concrete ceiling. My chamber looks the same as always. Empty, as if it's almost uninhabited. The only soul this room has seen in decades is mine. Objects of nostalgia lay there side by side with objects of non-value, reflecting how little attention I give to my surroundings being as preoccupied as I am with my thoughts. And me? Well I'm just me. I have a job, 9 hours a day like many people. I go to my job I go home, I pay my rent I pay my bills. I'm just a person, lost in the beehive that is our society.

Now to whomever reading this (if there is any) you've already deducted that this is a suicide note, or at least I wish you did given the fact that I'm dead.

Now if you knew me, you know that I'm not one to abide by social convention. And correct you are. I'm not writing this note because of the catastrophically insane rules of a species that didn't exist a few years ago. And yes I dare say few compared to our universe’s age.  No, I'm writing this with the purpose of philosophically justifying the act of ending one's life, if one should decide so. An act which, until this day, is considered clerically sinful and morally wrong.

I'd like to begin by acknowledging that even though I'm classified under the “ingrads” a term which was assigned to those who don't hold a university diploma after the 2018 universal decision to close down all universities for 10 years, thus obliging more people to take on labour jobs in order to solve the unemployment problem. I still take pride in my intellect, and I do as well in my philosophies which are induced by my insufferably hyperactive mind. And since I'm not a writer, the following might seem a bit chaotic, but should give you a rare insight into my head.

I've always seen the world through the glasses of ingenuity, glasses which a lot of people wear. They do that unwillingly of course because they were born with these glasses, and those are the kind of glasses that give you a headache. I started thinking deeply about everything as far back as I can remember. I recall asking questions as a child that rendered adults speechless and that were often met with scolding. I'll give an example here, for the sake of proof.

When I was 12 I was sitting on the bus listening to music through earphones, and an old man interfering as they do (because their kids are functioning on their own and they are terrified of feeling unneeded) told me that listening to music like that can damage my ears and make me deaf. And my answer, which gave a good chuckle to everyone on the bus, was "How can you possibly know that? Do you have any scientific evidence to support your theory?"

Now that you know who I am, I'll start unravelling my philosophy. Personally I've been here and there. I've tried almost everything imaginable. Every type of common pleasure, ranging from drugs, sex and alcohol. To simply a good cup of tea with a nice book on a cold winter's eve. While those pleasures did give me a temporary ecstasy, that ecstasy was gone soon thereafter. And as I went through life I was building a database of variables trying to reach a simple answer. And that I have, I've reached a conclusion..... Every pleasure I can have, comes from someone else from an outside source.

Let me support this hypothesis:

I've always enjoyed reading books, books are written by other people. I enjoy watching TV, listening to music, playing video games, all of which were made by other people. Even if I'm outside doing a sport, which was invented by other people, I have to wear clothes....... Again made by other people. The bed on which I'm lying right now, the room I'm in, the device on which I'm writing my note because my penmanship is horrifying, were all made by other people. My thoughts which should be of my own, are formed because of the society in which I live that conceives the universe in a specific way. Even those, my thoughts, are in a language which was invented by people and taught to me by other people. I was literally created inside another human...... How much more dependent can one be?

This dependence this........ De-Personalisation. Made me realize that I am in a co-dependent world in which pleasure is external and temporary whilst depression is internal and static. Just like if you're born in an area you don't like you get to leave, the same moral applies here. I'm not saying that the world is wrong, I just don't like it. I don't like the fact that you get treated differently based on the geographical location in which you were born. I don't like the fact that we get classified by 'credit' a number which has absolutely no value, which was the genius corporate solution of replacing money. In short.... I don't like the life that we as humans perceive.

Einstein said 'If you don't like your situation, change it. You're not a tree.' and with him I can't agree more. Some geniuses will tell me that I should try to change the world, make it better instead of just leaving it. I say to them, I didn't say it needs to be changed, I don't think it's wrong, I think the world works the way it does because it needs to work like it does. I just don't like it. If I don't like someone or something that doesn't mean that I should try to change them, I should just leave them be. In their own way they're perfect and I'm sure many like the world the way it is, and I don't blame those either. So in conclusion the decision of change should be in the hands of the human, regardless of what that change is. One's freedom ends where other's freedom starts, and this decision is as a freedom as a freedom can be.

Another argument religious people would say is that if you end your life you'll go to hell. To them I say the quote which made me view humanity in a new light.  “Humans are born from nothing, and yet they have the audacity to believe that after death they won't go back to nothing. Because they believe their life is too meaningful ......... ...... A more narcissistic species I've never seen.”

Though I have a slightly different approach to the subject. If there is in fact a deity he or she is always described as loving and merciful. I really highly doubt that he or she will send me forever to a place I'd hate because I left a place I hate. That would be a bit ironic and counterproductive. So as far I'm concerned I think God will make the right choice.

Moving on to another aspect, how would one's passing affect those around him. Or more precisely how it won't. Whether the person who ends their life (which henceforth I'll just call 'the decider') has anyone in their life, who will be affected by their absence or not, that effect will be temporary. It's a fact that no one can't live without any one. Literally any human alive can live without any human in their life. Even if one had a spouse, one of the two spouses well eventually die leaving the other spouse alive. So the absence of the decider even though it might affect some, it will pass and life will go on. Of course there shall be some grief and mourning but that's just the natural order of things. The landlord will find a new tenant, the employer will find a new employee, the mourners will move on and the order of the things will be exactly the same as it was before. It might seem blunt to state what I just stated, but the truth is often blunt to those unwilling to accept it. And death is something which needs to be accepted.

One last aspect, selfishness. It is said that a decider is selfish because he chose an easy way out. But maybe it's not the easy way out, it's just a change like I said earlier. Let's view this from the decider's eyes. It's quite selfish for the people around the decider to expect him to remain in a situation which he hates just because if he left they have to deal with it. That is not only selfish and unfair but it borders on narcissism. If you really think about it, the decider is the least selfish, and if those around him really care, they would gladly bear some emotional turmoil for the decider. That being said, there is one decider who is selfish, and that is a decider who has kids. If one has kids, one must live for his kids. Because the moment you decide to have kids, you become a completely different type of a decider and your life is theirs until a day comes in which they can survive on their own. Then you may do what you well.

I'm not quite sure how you end a suicide note, but if I'm to have a last word I would want it to be “anti-prejudice” as in instead of judging the decider see the world through their eyes and justify their deed.

And with these words I leave this world, not a better a place and not a worst one.

Just a playground for many and tonight a humbling graveyard for one.

By Othman Nahhas

Othman is an aspiring author and stand up comic who can be found at Istanbuls Take Me up The Bosphorus stand up comedy nights, he has a dead blog that he is resolved to start working on again which you can read here http://othmannahhas.blogspot.co.uk/ or follow his podcast here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv9RgNNs4Xc&feature=youtu.be

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