Sometimes suicide isn’t just an action, it’s a choice in the back of the mind to save themselves from themselves.
—Federico García Lorca
Why a page on suicide in a book of transformative truths? The Spanish surrealist poet Federico García Lorca was not afraid to think and write about it, and his words feel apt for this moment in history.
First, humanity is committing suicide and murdering the planet. If Lorca is correct, one motivation for suicide is saving oneself from oneself. In the act of suicide, an individual is exempt from having to struggle with his or her pain. And, of course, when people find a way to avoid suffering, whether through death, addiction, distraction, power, or the exploitation of others, they also forego the opportunity to venture into their core and mine the dark energies of human shadow at the center of which abides the sacred Self. So while suicide offers an escape from pain, it also guarantees that the deeper meaning of the pain will never be grasped. Humans murder themselves and the earth because they are wounded, bored, addicted, desperate, self-loathing, and alienated. Suicide and ecocide are twin energies that travel together and preclude the possibility of falling in love with the earth and one’s humanity.
Moreover, as collapse intensifies, this collective suicide will translate into more individual suicides than we can imagine, as millions of traumatized people choose not to endure the misery of a world unraveling. All that they have succeeded in avoiding within themselves is likely to bubble up from the unconscious and become overwhelming. Even if they could secure a lifetime supply of antidepressants, there would never be enough to construct the internal bulwark required for navigating the demise. And incidentally, I make no judgments of individuals who do not have the capacity to endure; none of us can be certain of our own endurance until we are confronted with things that feel beyond our ability to cope with.
Some activists insist that aware humans must perform an intervention and stop our species from killing the earth. I salute those who commit to this daunting journey. It is certainly not for the faint of heart. Whether an intervention is feasible is uncertain. What is certain is that industrial civilization is fatal for all earthlings.