The Epistemology of a Suicide

It baffles me why successful personalities commit Suicide. The death of Anna Nichole Smith from a drug overdose could have been a deliberate attempt at suicide. Marylyn Monroe, too was an accomplished actress, so then why did she choose the easy way out? At home in India we have come across tragic instances of successful models committing suicide. The recently alleged suicide committed by Viveka Babaji surprised everyone. She was a successful model, so why, then did she opt for the easy way out? Then,a few years back there was this rather tragic story about another accomplished model found wandering in Hauz Khaz, Delhi, in tatters and rags!

It seems as though the Philosophy of Existentialism might after all explain this rather disturbing trend of Nihilism in the successful youth of today’s times. Existentialism, a movement associated with Kierkegard, Camus, Sartre, and Heidegger suggests that there is no ultimate purpose to the world. The philosophy  suggests that persons choose and cannot avoid choosing their characters, goals, and perspectives. The Philosophy  of Existentialism further states that the truths about the world and our situation are revealed most clearly in moments of unfocused psychological anxiety or dread. Was it some kind of anxiety or dread that induced these successful models and Film stars to believe that life was not worth living? Albert Camus, a French Existentialist  writer described Nihilism in his novel L'Etranger.Kierkegaard attacked the validity of all the Philosophical systems that existed in his times. Nietzsche developed the idea of the “Overman”. Jean Paul Sartre presented the Existentialist Philosophy in his Novel, L’Etre et le neant; translated; Being and Nothingness.

Is it possible that in a moment of lucidity these successful personalities realised that there was no further purpose to life, since they had achieved the highest success in the materialistic world? Maybe they had realised that there was no further challenge left to overcome, and this plunged them into a state of despair? They say that life becomes very lonely for those who have achieved success in life. They had realised that life had no further success to give them?

Perhaps they greatest motivator in life is the realisation that there are more goals yet to achieve! Thus, to be alive you need to have a purpose to live! What matters is that you have still a long way to go!You should be one step before success and it is this which gives you the impetus to live! You have to have the belief that you are not yet perfect! So then, what is the meaning of life? Does life mean living to achieve success, moving towards success and goals which keep changing as we live? It all boils down to the idea that to continue to have the will to live, we need to have more to do in life! Often we live in a world of dreams, and when these dreams are exposed to be illusions, we are heart-broken. People are driven to suicide when they realise that they have no further goals to achieve and so they have no further purpose in life!