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.
The world in which we live today-reflecting in so many way the opposite of our sweetness and love-reminds us how desperately important it is to break the spell that's been cast on the human race and retrieve our shining self.
That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is out chance to chose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.
The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself
Crime is fast destroying the moral fabric of South African cities, and is becoming a major threat to South African democracy as well as the prominent manifestation of a "class war" that is largely a continuation of the "race war" of yesterday.
Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.
Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.
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