What a shame. I only watched a few episodes of a couple of his shows and read a couple of articles, but I enjoyed his work and attitude.
But the man himself thought it was a selfish act: “There have been times, honestly, in my life that I figured, ‘I’ve had a good run — why not just do this stupid thing, this selfish thing… jump off a cliff into water of indeterminate depth” and then went on to talk about how his daughter gave him reason to live.
I’ve been there, a long time ago, and what kept me from doing something so final was thinking I’d probably screw my kids up, maybe even worse than I was at the time. You think to yourself (or at least, I did), this is painful, do I want my kids feeling this terrible? No.
Of course, there’s no telling how much pain the man was in, only he knew. But poor daughter will probably have issues of her own, now.
My guess is he was referring to your original statement “Not sure why his process or lack thereof is relevant to my judgment that it was a stupid selfish thing to do.”
I don’t get the vehemence of the response to you, but I tend to agree unless you are in despair, its unwise and inaccurate to judge another’s without walking a mile in their shoes. Mainstream thinking is that they want to shred any appeal of thinking going in this direction, and that’s makes a kind of sense, but after the fact judging a person willing to go that far to end their despair, just demands sympathy and sorrow for all the victims and not judgement (in my mind).
Ah, damn it. I really liked Bourdain’s voice and his work, and I thought his stuff was getting more interesting, and more worthwhile, and I am frankly not ready for him to be done yet.
I knew he’d gone through some things, but didn’t realize depression was part of it. If anything, it seemed like he was much more positive and mellow now than when he was young, and full of piss and vinegar.
Thank you for Parts Unknown: Detroit, and No Reservations: Beirut. RIP.
This hurts to even quote, but I think it bears repeating:
God, I wish there was a reliable answer to this condition.
It’s sad to have lost him. .Suicide is selfish. The family may take years, generations to recover… if they ever do at all. I wish we were not only better at treating mental health issues but made it safe for people to actually talk about their struggles. It’s still so taboo.
I’ve toyed with the idea of creating a thread for unburdening your soul on here. I talk to my therapist about my depression/anxiety, but I don’t get a lot of return input that’s useful, sympathy is less than useless in my mind. Which seems to be their strength, that and occasionally asking you questions to better self reflect (which for me has never been a challenge, its the solution space I need help with LOL).
I feel pretty comfortable here, but I’ve had a few facts I’ve revealed thrown back at my face in unrelated topics that were only available for ammunition because I gave that information away. I think most people are better than that, but having a safe space online it’s just so risky. It seems like we need something like AAA or what the mass shooting victims arrange, like local groups with real safe spaces available to people, no matter how small or big their experience is to them. I means to talk. Of course I don’t know if talking it out is a solution, just that what we do now isn’t working for everyone so we need an option b,c or d.
I was just going to mute this thread and all of its “it’s a selfish act blah blah blah” ignorance because I do not think that the hill to die on is a message board where I don’t honestly know any of you people from Adam or his dog
But fuck it San Juan Hill time it is. Here, have something to read by somebody who might have known a little more about this than any of you and put it better than I ever could
"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."
David Foster Wallace
Fleeing the flames is not cowardice nor is it selfish
And that’s the last jaw jaw you’ll get from me on this subject
Coda: I remember one time, being young, dumb, and full of whatever and basically laying down the old “oh why the fuck would someone like him kill himself he’s rich famous talented new baby what a selfish dumbshit”. About Cobain.
Irony was it was the very seeds of that same inferno inside me making me say that angry ignorant bullshit.
We’ve had a few suicides in my family. It’s selfish in that the families, that hole, that wondering, that pain… it never stops. I am not coming at it this from the dead person who can’t talk about their POV, I’m approaching it from the family that’s left behind. The people who are left behind, they don’t get closure or hope, just an endless list of why and what should have been done differently.
You don’t have to agree with the rest of us but you really don’t get to invalidate it either. Ever wonder why people want that note… they’re looking for closure that the note probably still won’t give them.
Bourdain had the following to say about Kissinger in his 2001 book, A Cook’s Tour:
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”
