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Suicide

Originally written 2026-01-20.

I want to thank the people behind the episode Death Wish of the show Star Trek: Voyager. It's a good episode in its own right, but it speaks to me on a different level given it's one of the few pieces of media, especially mainstream media, that I know of, that explores the validity of suicide without stopping the discussion at 'suicide is bad, mkay', because it's uncomfortable to talk about.

For those of you not in the know, in this episode, Quinn, a Q, which is a species that is seemingly omnipotent and omniscient, has been imprisoned by his fellow Q, because he wanted to commit suicide. Not because he was ill or because of any other reasons that are bad at face value, but merely because he had done everything there was to do and he couldn't see any reason to continue to live. The rest of the Q didn't like that and imprisoned him for what was supposed to be eternity, but then Voyager shows up and accidentally lets him out. This turns the episode into a courtroom drama where it's apparent that while Quinn does not appear to be suffering in any obvious ways to any outside observers, the only reason the Q imprisoned him was that suicide was taboo in their culture. Quinn wanting to commit suicide was deemed to be reason enough to brand him mentally ill and lock him up for eternity.

This mirrors the real world, where wanting to commit suicide is itself a reason to be branded as mentally ill, and access to clean ways to commit suicide is non-existent. It's also taboo in our culture to talk about suicide in anything other than hushed tones. Cases where it happens aren't spoken about unless you want to blame the underlying reason of them being pushed to suicide, like bullying or severe mental illness. Being suicidal because you're of the opinion that life, either in its current state or just in general, isn't worth living, is not a socially acceptable position to have.

Quinn's reason for wanting to die makes for a really good example. Quinn isn't even suffering from anything the vast majority of humans have ever experienced. He's not wanting to die from being in poverty, from not being loved, from incurable pain, or anything physical. He is, when you get down to it, bored and philosophically unfulfilled. He's done everything there is to do, something no human could ever even hope to achieve, and since there's no higher purpose to anything, there's no fulfilment to be found outside of what he's already done. While these reasons are unfamiliar to most people, his reasoning is sound. If you go out and ask other people who are suicidal, you'll probably find a similar line of reasoning, but the starting point is something even more tangible, like poverty or incurable pain. If Quinn is suicidal out of sheer boredom, no wonder ordinary humans are suicidal from good old fashioned Shit life syndrome. Quinn's problem is unfixable by definition, while some of the problems you'll find out there in the real world, like poverty, are at least fixable in theory, but I wouldn't hold my breath on them being fixed any time soon. I'd imagine if there were much hope surrounding that prospect, the prospect of committing suicide wouldn't be front and centre in one's mind.

Many of us weren't cut out for life. We just go with the flow out of a lack of better options. Suicide isn't an option provided, nor one that can be obtained in any reasonably safe way. Oh sure, just get a gun and blow your head off, and get just a bit unlucky, and you'll live a life your life as a vegetable; trapped in your own head with no way to communicate with the outside world. A fate worse than death itself. Most other options aren't much better for similar reasons, and the ones that actually are better, aren't exactly easily discoverable nor easily obtainable.

There are a few more instances of media where suicide is treated as valid. Known Unknowns, the seventh episode of the sixth season of House also treats it as valid in the B-plot, but even then, it's treated as a valid alternative for terminal cancer patients, a situation that even society as a whole today agrees is beyond hope. And House makes his opinion outside of this kind of instance well known throughout the rest of the show. But this kind of mentioning in Media™ is a good thing, since it can hopefully plant a seed of doubt to break the belief that suicide is bad in and of itself and thus hopefully allow us to move beyond such unconditional beliefs. That said, House isn't a new show by now, and if you look at other long it took for other causes to go from 'can be shown on TV to not be bad in and of itself' to 'is socially acceptable', we're going to be here for a while.

Every now and then I see people saying that life isn't going to give you a hand; that what you want to happen, can't happen, but you still need to overcome it if you are to continue. Often they leave that last premise unspoken, the part about wanting to continue, but it's often still there; there's overcoming it, or nothing. I wholly reject that premise. I'd much rather not continue. I'd much rather have the literal nothing. I wish I could give up, but survival instinct trumps most other things. The rational part of me is ready and willing to die; the animal part of me pulls me back at every turn.

If we really care about reducing suffering, we need to make assisted suicide not only a thing, but an easily available thing. The closest things we have nowadays are Dignitas and Canadian Medical Assistance in Dying, both of which are limited to terminal cases. I'm still waiting for the day where Philip Nitschke, or anyone else for that matter, is allowed to set up shop, and you walk in the front door, but don't come out alive again. The day Futurama style suicide booths pop up will be a joyous one indeed. I'm not really against having a waiting period or something of that kind, to ease the worries anyone might have, but the central point is that you should be allowed to die if that's what you really want. Without a right to die, we don't have a right to life, but rather a duty to live.

Happy New Year.

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