When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that suicide can stem from deeper spiritual issues rather than just mental illness, challenging conventional views on the treatment of suicidal individuals.
Peter Wessel Zapffe's quote reflects a profound philosophical stance on the nature of existence and the complexity of human suffering. It implies that suicide, rather than being an act to be vehemently prevented, may arise from existential despair linked to the human condition. Zapffe criticizes the societal inclination to 'save' individuals contemplating suicide without comprehending the deeper spiritual and existential struggles they face, pointing to a misunderstanding of the essence of life itself.
In practice
During a mental health symposium focused on understanding the root causes of depression and suicide.
Man beholds the earth, and it is breathing like a great lung; whenever it exhales, delightful life swarms from all its pores and reaches out toward the sun, but when it inhales, a moan of rupture passes through the multitude, and corpses whip the ground like bouts of hail.
The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.
As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change.
The seed of a metaphysical or religious defeat is in us all. For the honest questioner, however, who doesn't seek refuge in some faith or fantasy, there will never be an answer.
A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness.
Our dream is to one day uncover the essence of what makes us human.
Know what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of Baptism; it is to believe in belief; it is to be so little that elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child had its fairy godmother in its soul.
The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world - no ideals.
No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.
We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.
Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game without ant errors, or as they say 'flawless game' is colorless.
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