When I was younger and my father would send me to my room, I would make believe the glass door knobs were diamonds and would day I would sell them and become as rich as William Randolph Hearst. Long ago, a friend of mine told me that suicide is a crime because it reflects badly on the community. If such rage against one’s own integrity and one’s own life can be hidden being apparently accidental awkwardness and motor insufficient, then it is not a big step forward to grasp the possibility of transferring the same conception to mistakes which seriously endanger the life and health of others. Think of the impression that would be made upon you by the news that someone you know had committed the crimes, say, of murder or theft, or been guilty of some act of cruelty or deception; and compare it with your feelings when you hear that he or she has met a voluntary death. While in the one case a lively sense of indignation and extreme resentment will be aroused, and you will call loudly for punishment or revenge, in the other you will be moved to grief and sympathy, rather than the moral disapproval which follows upon a wicked action.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

The terrors of life for some reach a point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, and an individual will put an end to their life. Who has not had acquaintances, friends, relations, who of their own free will have left this World; and of these to be thought with horror as criminals? There was once a man, who was very intelligent, but he was not tenderly attached to his young wife. He continually occupied himself with the thought of a separation, which he repeatedly rejected because he dearly loved his two small children. In spite of this, he always returned to that resolution and sought no means to make the situation bearable to himself. Such an unsettlement of a conflict served to prove to me that there was unconscious and repressed motives which enforced the conflicting conscious thoughts. One day, the man related to me a slight occurrence which had extremely frightened him. He was sporting with the older child, by far his favorite. He tossed it high in the air and repeated this tossing till finally he thrust it so high that its head almost struck the massive gas chandelier. Almost, but not quite, or say just about! Nothing happened to the child except that it became dizzy from fright. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

The father stood transfixed with the child in his arms, while the mother merged into an hysterical attack. The particular facility of this careless movement, with the violent reaction in the parents, suggested to me to look upon this accident as a symbolic action which gave expression to an evil intention toward the beloved child. Speech, as an object of outer experience, is obviously nothing more than a very complete telegraph, which communicates arbitrary signs with the greatest rapidity and the finest distinctions of difference. However, what do these signs mean? How are they interpreted? I could remove the contradiction to the actual tenderness of this father for his child by referring the impulse to injure it to the time when it was the only one, and so small, that as yet, the father had no occasion for the tender interest in it. Then it was easy to assume that this man, so little pleased with his wife at that time, might have thought: “If this small being for whom I have no regard whatever should die, I would be free and could separate from my wife.” What penalty can frighten a person who is not afraid of death itself?  #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

When someone speaks, do we at once translate his or her words into pictures of the fancy, which instantaneously flash upon us, arrange and link themselves together, and assume form and colour according to the words that are poured forth, and their grammatical inflections? What a tumult there would be in our brains while we listened to a speech, or to the reading of a book? But what actually happens is not this at all. The meaning of a speech is, as a rule, immediately grasped, and accurately and distinctly taken in, without the imagination being brought into play. It is reason which speaks to reason, keeping within its own province. The wish for the death of this much loved being must therefore have continued unconsciously. From here, it was easy to find the way to the unconscious fixation with the wish. There was indeed a powerful determinant in a memory from the patient’s childhood: it referred to the death of a little brother, which the mother laid to his father’s negligence, and which led to serious quarrels with threats of separation between the parents. The continued course of my patient’s life, as well as the therapeutic success, confirmed my analysis. And so, that is why suicide is thought of as an offence against the State, although not against the person, because depending on the state of mind of the individual, one may transfer the rage. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

The thought is that if one is willing to take their own life they may not value the lives of others. The actions described so far, in which we recognize the execution of an unconscious intention, appeared as disturbances of other unintended actions, and hid themselves under the pretext of awkwardness. If a good person should flee life when one’s misfortunes become too great; should the bad person, also, when that individual is too prosperous? When a person destroys their existence as an individual, sometimes that individual is not trying to destroy their will to live. On the contrary, some would like to live if they could do so with satisfaction to oneself; if that individual could assert his or her will against the power of circumstance; but the circumstance is too strong for that individual to bear. The problem arises when more so when someone sees taking the life of an innocent as a means to avoid their own self murder or as a way to escape an unbearable situation. However, suicide for some people is easy because they are in great pain and if the pain lasts a long time, and they think of it as a pause to the pain, for those who are tortured, it might seem like an escape. However, think about what change will death produce in one’s existence and insights into the nature of things? You never know what awaits you. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

If people are completely unconscious, they take no account of time. So, when you are dead, it is all the same to your whether three months pass in the World of consciousness, or ten thousand years. In the one case as in the other, it is simply a matter of believing what is told to you when you awake. So far, then, you can afford to be indifferent whether it is three months or ten thousand years that pass before you recover your individuality? And if by chance, after those ten thousand years have gone by, no one ever thinks of awakening you, would it be no great misfortune? You will have become quite accustomed to non-existence after so long a spell of it—following upon such a very few years of life. At any rate you may be sure you would be perfectly ignorant of the whole thing. Further, if you knew that the mysterious power which keeps you in your present state of life had never once ceased in those ten thousand years to bring forth other phenomena like yourself, and to endow them with life, it would fully console you. Think what you are doing. It is the Will to Live which is the real and direct aspirant. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

The effect of this is to make the individual careful to maintain one’s own existence. What will you be after your death? When death comes, you are annihilated as an individual and no one knows, for a fact, what happens next. We would like to believe we go to Heaven, and maybe it is true, but I think everyone should try and make the best of this life. We are finite, but filled with a desire for the infinite. The World in which we find ourselves is fragmented. Grasping splinters of reality, common understanding operates in terms of polarities—concrete and universal, appearance and concept, body and soul, individual and nature. We must escape from its rule if we are to recognize the infinite Idea. God made a sacrifice himself and the phenomenal to return to the infinite. In this annihilation the Godhead reveals itself. The reconciliation of the finite and the infinite is the goal of the philosopher when one tries to capture truth in this one’s systems; it is the duty of the moral being who confronts it as a task; it is achieved by the artist who, in creating the beautiful, reveals the Ideal in the phenomenal. Push away the veil that is hiding the Ideal life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Philosophy is fundamentally conversation. It is a joint struggle for something that is dimly apprehended and yet escapes adequate articulation. Truth is never a possession; it only reveals itself in the process of striving for it. Thus, the most adequate vehicle for the expression of philosophical thought is dialogue. In pure consciousness, there is no distinction between the seeming and the real. However, when the reflection that accompanies consciousness takes this absolute self-validating character of subjective immediacy as an indication of an external reality, then there arise those errors of judgement which since ancient times have given cause for skepticism. If truth were a fact of immediate consciousness it need not and could not be sought, and hence there could be no philosophy. However, to the distress of some and the delight of others, there is philosophy. There is consciousness of fact and there is an aspiration for cognition of truth. Father, your truth is made known in your word. Guide us to seek the truth of the human person. Teach us the way to love because you are love. God, you embody love and truth. Help us to recognize your face. Enable us to live out our vocation to bring love and justice to your people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Holy spirit, you inspire us to transform our World. Empower us to seek the common good for all persons. Give us a spirit of solidarity and make us one human family. We long only to speak out and to hear the truth. Dear God, give us strength to live another day; let none of us turn coward before its difficulties or prove recreant to its duties. Let us not lose faith in other people; keep us sweet and sound of heart, in spite of ingratitude, treachery, or meanness. Help us keep our hearts clean, and to live so honestly and fearlessly that no outward failure can dishearten us or take away the joy of conscious integrity; open wide the eyes of our souls that we may see good in all things; grant us this day some new vision of thy truth; inspire us with the spirit of joy and gladness; and make us the cup of strength to suffering souls. Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever, in the name of the strong deliverer, our only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9