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Suicides can be broadly divided into two categories (if not more):
1. Successful Suicides
2. Failed Suicides
We don't know much of successful suicides. The evidence is largely post-marital (sorry...it should be postmortemal) and therefore it is all inspired guess work. The dead tell no tales, more so if they wished to die leaving no note behind (and fake notes abound).
But a lot is known of failed suicides.
There is this saying:
"If you don't succeed in the first attempt, conceal it"
There are very few folks (indeed I haven't met with many, including self) who try and try and try till they die.
In primitive times death sentence by hanging simply read:
"Thou shalt be hanged!"
But once in a while the hangman goofed and the rope snapped and the victim got up and walked away as a free citizen (till next time).
Then on the sentence (pun intended) was amended to:
"Thou shalt be hanged by thy neck till death!"
...meaning:
"If the hangman fails in his duties in his first attempt, he shall try, try, and try again till he succeeds"
But not so Rubinstein, the celebrated pianist. He was a child prodigy...but that doesn't always help...Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics among other things, called himself an ex-prodigy. In fact that is the title of his autobiography.
Here is an aside, nothing to do luckily, with suicide:
Prof RGC with whom I shared office in 1973 told me that he was deputed as an invited guest to MIT during its centenary year (1961). And he was attending a lecture given by a renowned mathematician. During the question-answer session, RGC found this old man in his next chair asking a question that sounded silly to RGC. And he looked quizzically at him. But the lecturer took all of 10 minutes to answer that silly question. And after the lecture was over, RGC inquired who his neighbor was and was told that his name was one Norbert Wiener.
Coming back to our Rubinstein, he was debt-ridden during his youth before he became a multimillionaire. And he was so depressed that he decided to end it all (and escape his creditors...a mean thing to do) by hanging from the ceiling of his hotel room.
So far so good.
But he wasn't very savvy with the hanging mechanism and found that, soon after he kicked his chair away and started oscillating like a pendulum, the rope snapped and he fell to the ground and the noose gave. And he ran into the street and re-discovered the beauties of the summer afternoon, the birds, the bees, the trees, the folks, the girls in their hats, the sunshine...and touched his head to see if he was really alive.
And found he WAS!
And promised himself that he would never again, never, try to hang himself from ceilings by flimsy ropes:
...By 1908, Rubinstein, destitute and desperate, hounded by creditors, and threatened with being evicted from his Berlin hotel room, made a failed attempt to hang himself. Subsequently he said that he felt "reborn" and endowed with an unconditional love of life....
Rest is history (of chamber music).
I read this story of Rubinstien in the Readers' Digest in the 1970s when I was also reading my O. Henry collection.
And I was thinking what would have happened to Rubinstein (and the music-world) if, in the exuberance of his 'rebirth', he ran amok in the streets of Berlin and got killed by a speeding truck.
That would be like what happened to Soapy of O. Henry's 'Cop and the Anthem': he lived the life of a tramp and reveled in it. And in his bleak years made several attempts to be jailed since jail was a safe place where one gets free food and shelter. But of course his half a dozen attempts were bitter failures...cops and men refused to get him arrested.
At last he was overcome one afternoon listening to the nearby church music and decided to drop being a tramp and get down to solid work...forever...
And then:
...Posted by Ishani
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Suicides can be broadly divided into two categories (if not more):
1. Successful Suicides
2. Failed Suicides
We don't know much of successful suicides. The evidence is largely post-marital (sorry...it should be postmortemal) and therefore it is all inspired guess work. The dead tell no tales, more so if they wished to die leaving no note behind (and fake notes abound).
But a lot is known of failed suicides.
There is this saying:
"If you don't succeed in the first attempt, conceal it"
There are very few folks (indeed I haven't met with many, including self) who try and try and try till they die.
In primitive times death sentence by hanging simply read:
"Thou shalt be hanged!"
But once in a while the hangman goofed and the rope snapped and the victim got up and walked away as a free citizen (till next time).
Then on the sentence (pun intended) was amended to:
"Thou shalt be hanged by thy neck till death!"
...meaning:
"If the hangman fails in his duties in his first attempt, he shall try, try, and try again till he succeeds"
But not so Rubinstein, the celebrated pianist. He was a child prodigy...but that doesn't always help...Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics among other things, called himself an ex-prodigy. In fact that is the title of his autobiography.
Here is an aside, nothing to do luckily, with suicide:
Prof RGC with whom I shared office in 1973 told me that he was deputed as an invited guest to MIT during its centenary year (1961). And he was attending a lecture given by a renowned mathematician. During the question-answer session, RGC found this old man in his next chair asking a question that sounded silly to RGC. And he looked quizzically at him. But the lecturer took all of 10 minutes to answer that silly question. And after the lecture was over, RGC inquired who his neighbor was and was told that his name was one Norbert Wiener.
Coming back to our Rubinstein, he was debt-ridden during his youth before he became a multimillionaire. And he was so depressed that he decided to end it all (and escape his creditors...a mean thing to do) by hanging from the ceiling of his hotel room.
So far so good.
But he wasn't very savvy with the hanging mechanism and found that, soon after he kicked his chair away and started oscillating like a pendulum, the rope snapped and he fell to the ground and the noose gave. And he ran into the street and re-discovered the beauties of the summer afternoon, the birds, the bees, the trees, the folks, the girls in their hats, the sunshine...and touched his head to see if he was really alive.
And found he WAS!
And promised himself that he would never again, never, try to hang himself from ceilings by flimsy ropes:
...By 1908, Rubinstein, destitute and desperate, hounded by creditors, and threatened with being evicted from his Berlin hotel room, made a failed attempt to hang himself. Subsequently he said that he felt "reborn" and endowed with an unconditional love of life....
Rest is history (of chamber music).
I read this story of Rubinstien in the Readers' Digest in the 1970s when I was also reading my O. Henry collection.
And I was thinking what would have happened to Rubinstein (and the music-world) if, in the exuberance of his 'rebirth', he ran amok in the streets of Berlin and got killed by a speeding truck.
That would be like what happened to Soapy of O. Henry's 'Cop and the Anthem': he lived the life of a tramp and reveled in it. And in his bleak years made several attempts to be jailed since jail was a safe place where one gets free food and shelter. But of course his half a dozen attempts were bitter failures...cops and men refused to get him arrested.
At last he was overcome one afternoon listening to the nearby church music and decided to drop being a tramp and get down to solid work...forever...
And then:
Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around into the broad face of a policeman.
"What are you doin' here?" asked the officer.
"Nothin'," said Soapy.
"Then come along," said the policeman.
"Three months on the Island," said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.
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