The Survival Paradox

He stood there for some moments, reflecting upon what he would lose if he did what he wanted to do. Nothing; he had nothing to lose; he had nobody who would care. The wind billowed his clothing. He took a step into the void and did what he had wanted to do.

The weather was chilly. Bleak winds blew gently across the town. The pedestrians tucked their hand in the pocket of their jackets or under their arms. Radiant heaters glowed in the living room of many households. Blankets were attached to those who lay under them. The tap water cut through the hands of the working ladies. 

On such a morning, the patients, nurses and the doctor, who were present at that time in the south wing of Doctor S. Barpujari Mental Health Research Institute and Asylum, heard a loud thud and a scream of agony that followed it. The news soon spread out over the premises, Patient No. 716 had jumped from the roof of the south wing.

The asylum was two stories high and 716 fell with his feet first. This was the reason given by the doctor for his being alive. 716 was aware of the fractured bone that had come out of his calf. He knew perfectly well that his wrist was broken. And so he had cried and screamed accordingly until they took him to the Civil Hospital. But his mind was lost inside a library of thoughts, pulling out books from everywhere. Arbitrarily, it pulled out a large book and started reading it, blurring 716’s sense of pain and agony. His external body stopped showing any reactions to the pain he was enduring.

“Why did he try to commit suicide?” asked someone.

“I heard they found a suicide note in his diary,” answered someone else.

What that man heard, was what someone else read on the newspaper the next day. That same man also found the contents of the notes attached below the article.

“We all will die someday, due to reasons beyond our control. It is the most inevitable truth of life that you can’t escape death. So why not do it ourselves, as soon as we can, instead of suffering life? Why don’t all of us just die if that is what we’re going to do anyway?

“Many may reason that living life is all about passing one’s legacy to the next generation. Many may reason that living life is all about being alive beyond life. But all of that is nonsense, for we all know that humanity is going to vanish someday. Not someday near, but in the remote future it will definitely be extinct, and with it all our sufferings, all our enduring of useless pain will be tossed into oblivion. So why wait till that day? When a person has no hope of survival he must be killed to spare him from further pain, is what I believe. Euthanasia, they call it. And I also believe that we all are people who have no hope of survival.

“This is the reason I give to thee to justify my crime of killing myself. And by killing myself, I am setting an example for all the people of the world to do the same as me and also to show them that I practice what I preach.”

He talked about redemption from suffering of this world. He talked about attaining Nirvana through a rather violent way. But what good is redemption if sin doesn’t exist? What good is relief if pain doesn’t exist? Thinking about these questions, there he lay in the bed of that hospital, under the surveillance of the doctors and the nurses. And in another bed he lay after months, in another hospital, still trying to solve the paradox he created…