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Which is more cowardly: failing to commit suicide or the consideration of the act in the first place?
Let’s start with the consideration. Is the idea courageous or cowardly?
Some might say neither, some say both. But to me, I think it depends on the situation. Let me give an example. A soldier held hostage in enemy territory, interrogated for information. They ask him for details on the inner workings of his base, their source of fuel and power, their plans. This soldier has the answers but he know that if he breaks he’d be putting his entire faction and it’s movement at risk.
But he could prevent that from happening in the most permanent way possible. Offlining.
Courageous isn’t it? Perhaps. If he could bring himself to do the deed.
Now see another soldier, in the same situation with the same knowledge as he. But this time he isn’t driven to self mutilation by a sense of loyalty or righteousness. No, he is driven by fear. He knows that if the enemy extracts the information from him and uses that to take down his faction he may die a slower, guiltier death. He would die knowing he failed, he may die by his enemies hands or by the hands of his own enraged leader. Either way, it’d be easier to die by his own choice. Could he do it? Should he do it?
I think now you see where I’m going with this.
I wonder about this every so often. It comes to my mind when I see people offline themselves, it happens. Some just can’t acclimatise to the happenings or war. Some seek a way out. Whether to protect themselves or to protect another.
See this is what gets me confused. After the examples I gave you earlier, dying for a cause sounds honourable doesn’t it?
Dying to protect yourself however sounds selfish and pitiful.
Again, I think that depends.
If the cause you fight for becomes something of a burden to you, perhaps you’d feel as though leaving it would be better. We may be split into teams but really it’s every mech for themselves. But see it’s not exactly easy to just leave war, if it were I’m sure most of us would’ve done so by now.
No, the only way to be free from those kind of shackles is to die. So why not? Who would willingly want to be bound to something they don’t believe in? How foolish! So if dying sounds like the better option then, well, perhaps it is.
But is that courage or cowardice?
Then there are members of the masses who are driven by loyalty so strong that they’d give their lives for their cause and for their ruler. Millions have at this point.
But once you’re dead, you lose all your value. Everything you’ve done to better your world becomes utter scrap. You can’t live a better life if have no spark and no body to live it with. All the effort and suffering you endured comes to a hard immovable wall of an end.
Sure you protected your faction but what’s the point if they just move on without you? They just step over your body and get on with it. Trust me, that’s really what happens.
Your dying didn’t miraculously end the war, it goes on.
So was dying courageous or cowardly?
So these soldier decided to act on the idea. Did they die a honourable death to be remembered over the ages? Or did they die a pitiful death led by fear and weakness?
Buts that’s just half of it.
So I’ll ask this question again.
Which is more cowardly: failing to commit suicide or the consideration of the act in the first place?
The consideration is… undecided.
But what if you considered it and failed to do it?
What if you decided to die, went so far as to raise your blade or your gun or whatever tool you wish to use and go stock still? To fail?
Are you a coward because you couldn’t do it? Why couldn’t you do it?
Was it an enlightening sense of hope making you want to live another day? Or was it a fear of doing yourself harm that stopped you?
Now while I find the consideration of suicide shifts drastically between cowardly and honourable, I find the inability to make up your mind disgusting.
You can’t lead if you can’t make decisions and act on them. You can’t lead an army this way and you can’t lead yourself.
Being indecisive means you are hesitant, that you are weak, that you lack drive.
So if you consider suicide, you should have the power to act.
I know how to act. And I leave no room for regret.
I am strong.
I can lead.
I can make decisions.
And none of my ideas are ever bad because I can never fail, I can’t afford to fail.
But sometimes. I wonder if my decision could have been better.
I wonder if maybe I should’ve used a gun instead of a blade.
I wonder if maybe I should’ve gone straight for the spark.
I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have done this at all.
I wonder who would remember me and if so, how would I be remembered.
I wonder what it’s like to have courage.
I wonder what it’s like. To be more than a coward.