Preface:
Hello people. Before starting, I would like to say that I am in no way advocating for suicide to be pursued as the only option, nor am I suicidal. The purpose of this writing is to state my beliefs regarding the recent surge of suicides, and to hopefully have them changed (because quite frankly, this is a miserable position to hold). This argument does not apply to those who wish to end their lives on legitimate physical or mental ailments, but rather a general outlook for the Average Joe in modern society. I should also make it clear that my views are heavily influenced by a cynical view of history, as well as humanity, in general (delving into existential philosophy at 15 probably didn't help my view on this matter either :/). This is not a plea for pity, but instead a last ditch effort to escape the clutches of pessimism. The situations here will mostly concern Americans, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is becoming an increasingly global problem.
A Discouraging Future:
To start off, I have recently turned 18 years of age and have begun to start stressing over the bigger things in life, as one normally does. A few major ones are rather typical: what my profession will be, what college to attend, how will I support myself, is getting married and having children even worth it, etc... I've surfed r/teenagers a bit in recent months to see if I could find similar patterns, and this (understandably) seems to be somewhat common in my age group. A good chunk of these issues pertain to teenage angst, exams, and breakups. Adults have told me that this feeling is completely normal (I play TOR with a few dudes, some of whom grew up in the 90's, during which many of them felt hopeless and apathetic as well). However, I can't help but feel as if some of these are unique in the sense that they relate to the anxiety-inducing crises that appear to be threatening our entire way of life. One belief that I have noticed within my social group, and recently myself, is that very few of us hold on to any notion of hope for the next 10-30 years of our lives. This isn't just a personal worry, but also an existential one. In this paper, I would like to address the three big ones that are lurking right above our heads: student debt, climate change, and apathy in general.
Student Debt:
College, whether public or private, certainly doesn't come cheap, and its ugly head has been showing for a bit now. Currently, 44 million citizens of the US owe over 1.5 trillion dollars in student loans. If my math isn't off, that is at least an average of 35,000$ per person. This exceeds any sort of household debt excluding mortgage. These loans range well above 100,000$ for quite a few of these individuals. It could be potentially disastrous for taxpayers, and many of us will spend the rest of our lives paying it off if a solution isn't found. For many, the only way to advance their lives is to take out these loans. They basically have to hope that they will be able to pay it off within a few years times. While this would be the optimal situation, it just doesn't seem realistic considering current circumstances. There is no guarantee that you will even be able to get a job that applies to the degree you worked for, so it could be all for nothing. Personally, I don't think cancelling the debt will fix the problem outright, as it could encourage reckless spending if certain precautions aren't put in place (and America is rather terrible when it comes to long-term thinking). I will readily admit that I currently have a limited understanding of finances , but I'd imagine when considering the fact that most of this nation isn't rich, tens of thousands in debt can be crippling.
Climate Change:
Overwhelming scientific evidence has shown that we are effectively hammering Earth with a strap-on, and it isn't enjoying it in the slightest. I frankly don't buy into the alarmist propaganda that the entire planet will be incinerated into a heap of spherical ash. There is however, no denying that our quality of life is going go downhill, fast. Food shortages, mass immigration, population displacement, extreme weather conditions, you name it. Shit will get bad quick if we don't do something on a large scale. My discontinued use of plastic straws in order to save the turtles won't bring a halt to ocean pollution. My decision to limit myself to two potential children won't drastically effect the carbon footprints that humanity firmly plants. And finally, my next door neighbor that eats a purely vegetarian diet, uses reusable water bottles, and bikes to work every morning isn't going to prevent the sixth mass extinction. It would require a group effort from the world's most powerful nations to see even a small difference. That just doesn't seem to be happening as quick as it needs to. When you consider the fact that our president and at least 1/3 of our adult population doesn't even consider climate change to be real, who wouldn't find it difficult not to feel anything but utter despair? Add in the fact that many of these people control the upper echelons of our democracy, potentially for the next 20 years, and you can see why things will likely remain stagnant. I see disaster as certain at this point. In fact, if there is anything my hours of history reading has taught me, is that we only act at the last possible moment before disaster strikes. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening with climate change, considering it is a slow, gradual build up to an ultimately horrendous outcome that most people don't seem to notice. Blame can primarily be put on this nation's education system, as well the rampant circulation of fake news that plague the citizenry (although this was inevitable given the nature of the internet).
Apathy:
While I hate having to generalize an entire generation of people for their actions, it has become clear that the Baby Boomers have heavily contributed to our current situation. As George Carlin put it, they seemed to have developed a rather enduring life philosophy of "GIMME IT IT'S MINE!", which many of them maintain to this very day. Could this lifestyle been fueled by the possibility that they would all be annihilated by nuclear warfare during their youths.? Possibly, but considering that isn't really a big deal anymore, I can't see why they would keep this view up other than pure selfishness. On top of this, I suspect that have also adopted an "Après nous le déluge" approach to the problems ahead of us. This is very infuriating to me. They are basically saying "fuck you it's your problem now", even though they enabled many of these problems to exist in the first place! Once again, many of these people are in high positions of political office, instead being mostly concerned about how much money they can run off with. To further the problem, Millennials aren't doing much either. They talk a whole lot, especially on this site, of how change can be reached by voting and there is reason to be hopeful for the future. Come election day though, their enthusiasm seems to be near nonexistent at the polling places. Most of them would rather spend time on Twitter rants and Reddit posts complaining about how big of a failure we are while the rest of the world laughs at us. I will confess that I'm guilty of this as well, with the main factor being that we are incapable of dealing with abstract threats until faced directly.
Conclusion:
So now that we are through with all that, how does any of this tie into suicide? The answer to that, at least to me, is depressingly easy to answer. If we will be spending our whole lives paying off absurd amounts of debt with no other solution, attempting to fix a climate crisis that might be screwed anyways, and trying to convince a largely apathetic population that there are serious issues at hand, who wouldn't see just ending it all as a potentially better option? Why would we want to waste most of our time and energy fixing the problems of past generations that could have been (for the most part) avoided in the first place? Would the overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread not lead many of us to just give up, eventually leading to a premature demise? To some extent, this train of thought feels justified, at least when you take into account the rather bleak predictions for the economy and environment in the next half century. Rather than pushing it forward, we will be desperately trying to regain some sense of manageable balance for civilization. I envy the person that can see optimism in this absolute clusterfuck of a situation, because it seems to me that we are just expected to slug on through without complaining.
Now, I'm well aware that the topic of suicide is a controversial one regardless of circumstance, but it has become such a common source of discussion amongst my peers that I'd like to gain another perspective. With personal issues added in, and the general worldview of crushing nihilistic doomsday pessimism, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that my whole life will be rife with more misery than I care to take. I understand that my age plays a factor into how I view the future, but hopefully you will be able to take me somewhat seriously, despite my inexperience. I'm also know that struggle is merely a part of life, but part of me thinks much of what we will face could have been largely avoided if ignorance and greed hadn't festered as much as it did. Then again, that is merely human nature, isn't it?
