Suicide

The first right recognized by the State to man is the right to live. Being a right, it could be thought that a man can choose to make use of it or not, but the matter is more complicated than it seems. Cicero wrote: “Men should remember that he wasn’t born for himself, but for his country and his family”; and this strengthens my idea that an individual’s life is not solely theirs, but as a citizen they have duties towards their country. Cato was placed in purgatory by Dante, because according to him and to many of his contemporaries, his act of putting an end to his life was to be considered heroic as he didn’t want to subject himself to Caesar’s tyranny. Freedom of conscience is also a right conceded by the State to every citizen, but is it really worth giving up the most important thing we have to protect our ideologies? Ideologies that come and go, that change continuously, are put in front of the only thing that it’s once lost, can’t be regained again. It’s clear that the price paid by Cato to keep his conscience intact is more valuable than what was really necessary. When you die, you are deprived of that thing that puts a man on higher level as regards to other humans: thoughts. Aristle imagined a God who has the only occupation of thinking for it was the only thing that allowed him to maintain his perfection. He also wrote that thinking was the supreme activity that made man what he is- We are “rational animals” and to be that we have to have our reason and to have a reason and to use it, we must live. “Life is our reason”: if we deprive ourselves of it, we degrade ourselves to beats. Around an individual there is a family, a community and a State that resent the loss: not economical nor political, but social. We are the society, so, if an that element constitutes it misses, the State also misses it. In this world dominated by social individualism, someone could say: “The life is his; let him do whatever he wants with it”. But can this someone, who states this, dare hurt himself? I am not able to give an answer. However I can make a consideration that occurs most times: this same person shall be the first to feel disgusted at the death of a suicidal. There is an ethical hypocrisy that hides under this absurd individualism. In this society dominated by the selfish “I”, important values are lost everyday, but if there is one that should never change, because what is sustains is always and only that and it doesn’t depend on other factors, is that of life. It’s necessary to have it to live like humans, it’s necessary we conserve it to transmit it to the future generation, it’s necessary we are conscious of it as a respect to the laws that guarantee it for us. When someone feels like he has arrived to the end, beyond which they can’t go and then they think there is no way out, they should stop and think. You are never useless in this world; the fact that you exist is already a great contribution, but it’s not enough. To be what we are, living beings, we have to live.