johnvonwebber

[johnvonwebber]

To someone who has constantly felt disgust with more or less intensity, the échec in life and of life becomes the totally horrible thing he is resolved to reject, in pride and mourning. He throws himself on the side of that tiny minority who do not want to participate any longer and who are called cowardly by every simpleton, as if there could be some kind of higher courage than the kind that defies the origin of every fear, the fear of death. The bravery of the potential suicide is certainly not arrogance. There always dwells within it an addition trace of shame that, derived from the logic of life, makes the person standing before the leap ask why it is specifically he or she that can't stand it, can't stick it out, when the others still...

Jean Améry, On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death

#jean améry #suicide

[johnvonwebber]

Those who step to the threshold of voluntary death carry on the great dialogue with their body, their head, and their ego as they never have before... The body and the mind are now talking at once, the murmur of their voices can be heard in space. The body knows, in ninety minutes' time, the time it normally takes to reel off a movie, it will no longer be itself. It will smash on the asphalt, it will bleed until it stops bleeding, its central respiratory system will be abruptly paralyzed, or it will fall into a restless sleep that will change it forever. The body protests, even now, and will revolt even more savagely, as soon as its being is taken away from it. The mind - please let the simplifying everyday concepts pass, they intrude as soon as thinking reaches its limits - the mind gives orders. And protests for itself against being taken out of time, and therefore against the fact that all the time layered up inside of it is disappearing. It recalls so much, everything has a temporal character because even space, which was not only the body's provenance but also the mind's, is now being bolted shut. It is voluntary death that puts an end to it, there is no escape and no hope, for in the name of dignity and as an answer to the échec the mental court of appeals itself offers its own extinction.

Jean Améry, On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death

#jean améry #suicide

[johnvonwebber]

Only those who have entered into the darkness can have a say in this matter. They'll unearth nothing that appears useless in the light outside. What they have brought from the depths will run like fine sand through fingers by day. But that they, and only they, were on the right path, the way corresponding to the experience, will be confirmed by all who are suicidal, as long as they stick to themselves and do not deny themselves.

Jean Améry, On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death

#jean améry #suicide

[johnvonwebber]

Eyes are not made to read books. But if you want at any cost to lower them to this service, read: Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Simonides, Socrates (in the first Platonic dialogues), Aeschylus and Sophocles, Ecclesiastes, the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Lucretius … the ‘Triumphs’ of Petrarch, and Leopardi’s 'Canti’, 'The Adventures of Pinnochio’ by Collodi, [and] Ibsen’s dramas.

Carlo Michelstaedter, Persuasion and Rhetoric

#carlo michelstaedter #persuasion and rhetoric

[johnvonwebber]

Let those curse it who curse the Sea, those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.

Job 1:8, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #job

[johnvonwebber]

Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in? For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.

Job 1:23 - 1:24, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #job

[johnvonwebber]

Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? ...There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slaves are free from their masters.

Job 1:11 - 1:19, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #job

[johnvonwebber]

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 1:2, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Ecclesiastes 3:9 - 3:11, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1:17 - 1:18, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands. As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands.

Ecclesiastes 5:13 - 5:15, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Ecclesiastes 7:3 - 7:4, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what human beings are, and that they are not able to dispute with those who are stronger. The more words, the more vanity, so how is one better?

Ecclesiastes 6:10 - 6:11, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 2:22 - 2:23, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 4:2 - 4:3, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

The wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darkness. Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them. Then I said to myself, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?" ...How can the wise die just like fools? So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:14 - 2:17, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes

[johnvonwebber]

I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

Ecclesiastes 1:14, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

#bible #ecclesiastes