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.
I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don't notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
When a grown man reaches forty, we change him for an old one. He has completely disappeared. There's only the most superficial resemblance between the two of them. Nothing is handed on from one to the other.
A man's physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will.
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.
We thrust our fingers into our ears to stop its moan; but it was no good; the cry cut like a drill into our heads, dragging minutes into hours, hours into years. We withered and grew old between those cries.
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