“THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS, NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER.”

-T.S. Elliot

Sitting in the family room, at 5 PM last evening, I made the same mistake I make each day, yet again: switching on the ‘tube’.

This ritual is prompted, I suppose, by the feeling that somehow, inexplicably, I feel the need to be once more be fully informed about the most recent outrages committed by my fellow high-grade chimpanzees against each other (think: ‘Opening sequence of Arthur C. Clarke’s famed sci-fi epic ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, with its simian proto-humans battling each other with jawbones). Invariably, by the time the national news finishes airing at 6PM (ABC, CBS, NBC, which are the only ‘free broadcast’ news sources still available without satellite/cable/broadband services), I feel about as depressed as Napoleon must have felt while retreating from the frozen Russian steppes.

At times, my collective sense of depression and futility almost approaches the limits of the tolerable, in view of the repetitive nature of humanity’s ‘stupid factor’, a befuddled sensibility no doubt furthered by the chattily plastic perkiness of the principal female anchors. This usually reaches a peak at the end of the broadcast, when network policy dictates that all the day’s doom & gloom culminate in an uplifting, positive ‘aw-gee!’ story (usually about a partly paralised child who manages to overcome his crippling disorder, or a double-amputee soldier who climbs Mount Everest, despite having no lower extremities…well, you get the idea). Awwww, GEE!

I guess the networks feel that they can somehow offset the unending string of stories about violence, bigotry, shootings, drug-dealings and gross acts of callous ignorance by splashing a syrupy, emotionally slavering snippet of hopefulness in front of us, their captive audience, at the last second (before all the terrible news consumes us utterly).

Well, folks, I for one can attest that it simply doesn’t work. The blatantly formular ‘feel-good’ ending note does NOT in the least counteract the spiritually devastating awareness that by and large, humanity is totally f**ked beyond repair.

I speak, of course, not for 20 & 30 somethings, who live their vicarious lives through the capricious medium of their electronic media devices (the same ones frantically caught up, Pied Piper-like, in the latest social media obsession: ‘POKEMON GO’), but for those of us like myself who are by now in their 60s & 70s (and who KNOW from previous experience that there are far more important things to aspire to in life than having a zillion FACEBOOK ‘friends’), there’s little hope left to aspire to.

In many ways, it’s a terrible thing to still insist on maintaining one’s death-grip on reflective intelligence, despite the mesmeric pull of youthful culture’s addiction to their electronic communications devices. In some cases, especially when you are a frustrated idealist (like me) who KNOWS inherently that human beings can aspire to much higher standards of thoughtfulness and rational behavior, it can be such a crushing realization that thoughts of selbstmord (that’s ‘suicide’ to you linguistic illiterates) hover just out of reach, lurking darkly beyond the border of one’s happier reflections.

This may be particularly true for many older people, who are perhaps beset with the typically unhappy (and often unavoidable) health issues that surface in one’s later years. And it may be even more profoundly impactful in view of the mindless opposition to elective suicide maintained by so many religiously narrow-minded souls (the same evangelical idiots who oppose abortion, who would deny women the right to ‘own’ their own bodies and who think stem cell research is diabolical).

Quite recently, after viewing the particularly disheartening (nay, depressing!) news about both the mass-shootings that have been going on AND the myopic reactivity of Blacks who feel that they are being exclusively singled out as a special object of racial violence, I found myself once again straying to thoughts of how I would end my own life, had I finally reached the absolute end of my progressively weakening hopefulness for better times & happier social circumstances.

As a confirmed atheist and non-subscriber to religious (read: Christian) spiritual conventions, I have no difficulty at all in idly contemplating the various means which are available to exit this world and transition to whatever (if anything) lies beyond. In fact, about 40 years ago, during an idle moment in my clinical pulmonary function lab operations, I devised a rather nice little closed-circuit breathing system, entirely of my own design, consisting of a 5 liter latex breathing reservoir which was attached to a one-way breathing circuit that passed through a C02 scrubber (Baralyme, or potash).

As some perhaps are aware, the intensely uncomfortable sensations attendant to suffocation arise not from the diminishment of 02 in available atmosphere, but in the rising levels of C02. The elevation of C02 above the normal atmospheric .05% component causes the relevant human physiological chemo-receptors in one’s airways to create a feeling of extreme discomfort, anxiety, panic and alarm. All perfectly normal sensations, according to Mother Nature’s (not ‘God’s’) master plan, since those feelings of acute distress serve to spur physical efforts to survive (i.e. breath ‘normally’ again) that may well succeed.

While you may possibly die from lack of 02 (insufficient levels of Oxygen in the blood) in an emergency situation, unless you are subject to elevated levels of expired C02 (a normal expiratory by-product of human respiration), you might well ‘pass over’ without any undue discomfort at all. After all, isn’t a painless death preferable to a painful one?

Think of a classic scenario in which human beings are trapped in a hermetically sealed environment that has no provision for maintaining survivable 02 levels or for reducing expired C02. That would certainly fit the infamous Russian ‘Kursk incident’, in which the gi-normous K-141 Kursk submarine (an ‘Oscar-II’ Class vessel of some 15,000 tons displacement submerged) suffered a catastrophic disaster, some 300 feet under the sea, trapping a handful of its crew in the after (watertight) compartment.

As the oxygen levels gradually diminished, it took a while for them to demise, owing to a certain amount of active C02 scrubbing function that existed within the hull. However, due to the fact that C02 levels remained non-lethal, while minimum 02 levels progressively declined, they eventually died of a combination of hypothermia and hypoxia. Disregarding the blind terror that knowledge of their situation probably inspired, they survived as well as their circumstances enabled them to, for as long as possible, but largely without the added physiological terror that toxic C02 levels prompt.

So, the key challenge in painless suicide by asphyxiation is to reduce or eliminate the toxicity of rising C02 in the atmosphere one is breathing. In previous editions of the ‘Hemlock Society’ handbook (‘Self Deliverance’), methods of less-painful suicide were much gone into (Note: the ‘Hemlock Society’ has since gone defunct and now exists under a new name, in a slightly revised & different form).

Guns are far too messy and potentially traumatic for survivors (who have to view and clean up the awful mess they create). Lethal injection methods, using Dr. Kavorkian’s self-administered ‘machine’, are far more palatable. But in more recent years there arose a discussion of using so-called ‘inert’ gases to achieve a painless exit.

At first, it was suggested that a 100% Helium atmosphere would be ideal, in conjunction with a ‘suicide bag’ consisting of a large volume, flexible (and ideally transparent) rubber or plastic receptacle. The point was made that in the complete absence of ANY oxygen at all (such as in a large bag completely filled with an inert gas (i.e. no oxygen), breathing within a bag so configured would result very rapidly in unconsciousness. That is, a person would become totally unconscious within a few breaths, and this is not enough time to permit the C02 chemo-receptors to raise the alarm and create the awful and to-be-avoided physical sensations of suffocation. Within 5 to 10 minutes the total absence of any oxygen other than that expired (roughly 16%, but that would be overwhelmingly insufficient in an atmosphere otherwise comprised of 100% inert gas) would result in death, as the heart went into ventricular arrhythmias that precede asystole (complete heart stop). Of course by the time that final terminal event occurred, the person would be long beyond any conscious awareness of pain, suffocation or anything whatsoever.

The only real possible hazard would consist of someone suddenly discovering a person actively engaged in this act, who ripped off the bag and attempted to rescusitate the person in mid-exit. Depending upon how long the individual in such a bag had been without 02, even if they revived, the chances are great that they would have already suffered severely disabling mental effects (i.e. irreversible destruction of brain matter, with accordingly diminished permanent cerebral function).

A bit more recently, the suggestion arose that since Helium is a bit scarce and hard to get, these days, a better inert gas would be Nitrogen, which is commonly available and that would achieve the same ends.

Interesting to think about, but because those who wish to end their lives of their own free will are still considered mentally aberrant (either as a ‘sinner’ by some churchy soul, or as a semi-criminal by law enforcement officers, since suicide is still considered an illegal act in some venues, amazingly), self-deliverance of some sort or another is the only option available to those who are NOT terminally ill but simply tired of living, due to an accumulation of ‘Weltschmertz’ (extreme world-weariness, or terminal depression).

Seeking medical or psychiatric help is not necessarily a productive option, since all that information revealed by the afflicted person goes into a medical file that will forever thereafter mark one off as somehow psychiatrically damaged. In most cases the medical resource will simply try to palm off some sort of anti-psychotic meds on the afflicted person anyway, since despite all the verbal happy horse-exhaust, in today’s over-burdened health care arena no one is really interested (or has the time) in helping a person sort through these complex afflictions. Having been involved with health care for over 40 years, I would venture to say that the medical establishment is far more interested in documenting afflictions than in actively treating them (as sad as that may seem). But realistically, healthcare resources, such as they are, are simply overwhelmed these days and likely secretly wish that all their patients would just quietly go away (and stop badgering them)… “Ask your doctor?” Hah! Good luck with that, Bunkie.

One can’t help but think of that brilliantly daring sci-fi film of the 60s, starring Charleton Heston and Edgar G. Robinson, titled ‘SOYLENT GREEN’, in which eugenics were not only embraced by a post-apocalyptic world, but mandated. You’ll perhaps recall that those who wished to end their lives (for whatever reason) would visit a local establishment and be painlessly euthanised, eased in the process by a beautiful visual and auditory setting of their choice (music & pastoral scenery). The shocker came afterwards, with the demised body quickly removed & transported to a recycling plant where it was processed into a proteinaceous food substance named ‘Soylent Green’, to be used to feed a population otherwise gradually starving, due to a lack of food production wherewithal.

While the idea of voluntary euthanasia isn’t therefore perhaps quite that startling, the idea of recycling human remains to help feed people is rather disconcerting. However, since the world merrily continues to ignore the resonant echoes of Thomas Malthus’ (and Charles Darwin’s) admonitions regarding eventual effects of overpopulation (in the face of the world’s innocently ignorant, religiously-minded souls who still delude themselves into thinking that the creation of ever growing numbers of offspring is somehow ‘God’s will’), something along these lines may well figure in the eventual failure of humanity’s survival on this increasingly beleaguered planet.

But to return to my previous thesis (oppressive depression over humanity’s contamination by the ‘stupid factor’), I for one fail to see how any reflectively aware and sensitive ‘older’ person can keep from getting terminally depressed over the manner in which American culture (and indeed the entire world’s erstwhile human ‘civilisation’) is progressively deteriorating in the seemingly mad frenzy of superficiality, ignorant emotionalism, and prejudicial hysteria we call ‘social progress’.

Witness the present situation in America in which a handful of stupid White racists and an equal handful of equally ignorant Black racists are determined to start an overt racial street war. To say that it’s appalling is understating the magnitude of the problem by a considerable margin.

In one corner are arrayed the obtusely myopic and fanatically vociferous leftist liberal progressives, whilst in the other lurks a stubbornly determined core of radical, populist extreme-rightists, both equally insistent on NOT establishing or maintaining any sort of productive colloquy that could result in a rationally constructive compromise.

Meanwhile, the media (the classic ‘Fourth Estate’ that is perhaps one of the worst offenders contributing to this ongoing ‘us versus them’ social antagonism) grievously compounds the situation by means of blatantly transparent journalistic bias that exploits the average know-nothing street person by feeding them obviously loaded and leading prompts in an effort to get some titillating air-time stories to keep its ‘just-so’ media audience (read: shit-for-brains consciousness) entertained.

If hearing yet another shooting victim’s relatives ‘speaking out for the first time’ on your average daily news program isn’t enough to turn your stomach, then subjecting yourself to other, perhaps even more insulting ‘infotainment’ venues (such as are today’s present ‘reality TV’ travesties) is.

My wife, certainly a wonderful and supportive mate in so ways that really count, and also exactly my age, is unfortunately all too easily sucked in (like the mass of you out there) by the range of reality-TV programs that cutter up the airwaves today, like little brown turds in a toilet bowl. Chief among her favs are such standard things as ‘Dr. OZ’, ‘The Steve Harvey Show’, and all…yes, every one…of those gut-retching cooking shows (such as ‘Master Chef’, ‘Top Chef’ and ‘Hell’s Kitchen’), not to mention seriously schlockly stuff like ‘American Ninja’, ‘Survivor’, ‘The Great Race’ and ‘Strong’….YUK!).

Aside from the fact that so-called ‘reality TV’ has about as much in common with REAL reality as I have with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the fact that everyone seems to become absolutely and obsessively mesmerised by what is clearly tantalizing trash simply furthers my sense that the human race’s time on this otherwise beautiful (natural) earth is limited.

My own theory as to exactly WHY humanity consequently verges on the teetering edge of extinction is that American styled corporate capitalism is principally to blame for the massive, brain-deadening dumbing down of our society, as it continues to dredge the depths of conceptual asininity to produce profits. That and the perverse effects of the PC mentality that positively consumes the leftist liberal progressives among us.

This is perhaps well exemplified by the fact that American ethics and morals have increasingly become subject to the same sort of sliding scale of honesty and integrity that our Democratic presidential candidate so perfectly demonstrates (along with ‘Slick Willie’, her marital partner). The sort of ‘It’s legal to sell it to you, but you can’t legally use it!’ duplicitousness that governs almost all commercial marketing ethics these days [I think back to California of the post 70s era, when enthusiast automotive parts companies would (legally) sell you parts & components for your vehicle to enable you to defeat the legal smog regs, attended only with the caveat that they ‘aren’t legal for street use’.] “Hi there! You can legally buy grass, but you can’t legally smoke it!” Or, “We can legally sell you a gun, but you can’t legally use it!” QED & etc.

While America as a nation started off as a great, soaringly inspirational experiment in the promulgation of democracy (and market laissez faire economic philosophy), we have sadly allowed it to be turned into a modern nightmarish monster, the likes of which Mary Shelley ('Frankie's' mum) would doubtless be proud, thanks to the establishment of absolute corporate control over the lives of individual Americans (through media, marketing and ‘infotainment’) that is today’s ‘reality’ (TV or otherwise).

Americans have willingly (co-dependently) allowed themselves to be led down the ‘Alice-in-Wonderland’ path of material consumerism by ‘our’ economic way of life and in the process relinquished any option to exercise independent thoughtfulness and/or rational, analytical intelligence (“my ‘X’ in the box certifies I have read and agree to all the terms and conditions enumerated below...” in teeny, tiny print). This is bad enough in and of itself, but the fact that the entire world thinks it’s mighty keen to follow the American model and emulate our vapidly vacuous state of mindless consumption simply scares the hell out of me.

When America still remained relatively isolated from any risk of contaminating the rest of the world with our particular kind of spiritual/economic disease, there might have been some residual hope for the planet. Now, however, with the world increasingly linked by virtue of that infuriatingly addictive little ‘smart phone’, all such hope has long since vanished. With the world well along towards becoming one great octapoidal world economy, everyone will sooner or later be reduced to the mindless, slavering and abject ignorance of a sort of collective consumer ‘Kardashian mentality’. Ugh!

Faced with such a prospect, I can’t help but think that there must be other extremely frustrated thinkers and reflectively intelligent souls out there who find the prospect of such a future absolutely appalling. Or, worse yet, as the onerous afflictions of age accumulate, many, who find themselves so increasingly frustrated by the mass stupidity that now governs the average life, who have at some point considered the possibility of voluntarily ‘checking out’ of this entire mess…whether terminally ill or simply aggravated beyond human endurance by what is an entirely avoidable, totally unnecessary abnegation of actualized higher intellectual and spiritual excellence in America.

How sad. Indeed, how sad.

Reflecting on all this for the umpteenth time, I found myself increasingly aware, also, of how disconnected and isolated us ‘older’ members of American society invariably become as we hurtle towards that yawning, unknown oblivion that awaits all of us…ultimately...

Back in earlier centuries, as beset as they were with an infinity of truly serious problems (“Will I find enough food to eat today?” or “Will I die before the sun is down?”, for example), there were still venues at which human beings could seek out and find truly satisfying human connections with which to affirm and validate their otherwise miserable daily existences. Quite often this would take form in the shape of a local pub, beerhall or other public venue, where intoxicating spirits could ease the pain of life’s many miseries, if only for a moment, in the company of others of a like mind, caste, class and/or social status.

There was something infinitely supportive about those ‘venues’ and my own reflections along these lines harken back to the beerhalls of Bavaria of the 1800s and early 1900s. The ‘Gemulichkeit’ (look it up) that was to be found there was absolutely amazing, not to mention socially cathartic. There was something quite satisfying about knocking back liters of good German (Bavarian) beer in the company of others, and yes I know all too well that German Nationalism got started in those same beerhalls with all its unhappy consequences, but in fact prior to the rise of Hitler’s National Socialism, Bavarian beerhalls were in fact the absolute height of social democracy.

Sound fantastically absurd to you? Consider the history of Germany’s rise to industrial prominence in the late 19th Century. In a land absolutely plagued with class distinctions, political and social dichotomies and polar economic divisions of society, the Bavarian beerhall was the one single place where everyone…regardless of class, money, authority, power, titles and/or influence…could meet on an absolutely equal ground to discuss anything under the sun, free of constraints or restrictions.

Naturally enough, Bavaria of the 19th Century did not have a Black minority to complicate its internal affairs, but it did have an alternate ethnic mishmash of mind-boggling proportions. Any contemporary study of European history will rather quickly demonstrate the complexities attendant to having an extremely diverse population of Slavs, Germans, Bohemians, Slovenians, Serbs, Magyars, Islamic peoples (remember, the Ottoman Empire came within a hair of conquering ALL of Europe at one time) and many others, uncomfortably sharing available land areas. It was in that frothy mix of diverse elements of the population that the beerhall thrived and although this ETOH-enhanced atmosphere did ultimately produce the nightmarish spectre that was Nazi Germany, prior to that moment the importance of the beerhall in Bavarian life was transcendent in its importance as common ground for all elements of society to gather on equal ground. Shared commonalities arose therein that served to bind and actualise a surprisingly wide range of people, whether young, old, wealthy or impoverished. All could gather in the beerhall and agreeably anaesthetise their frazzled sensibilities without having to later shoot each other in the streets.

Regrettably, as the encroachment of age diminishes such possibilities (and as history relegates beerhalls to the foggy past), there are no Americanised counterparts worth mentioning. Sure, we have ‘local bars’ in every city, but the stark range of deficit and often dysfunctional mentalities found there are so unfathomably impenetrable that there’s no American substitute for good old fashioned Bavarian ‘Gemutlichkeit’. Consequently, we may have Cowboy Bars, Gay Bars, Druggie Bars, and what have you, but nothing is comparable to the traditional old Bavarian beerhall, where everyone was welcome and no one was turned away. Perhaps this was after all, uniquely German, but speaking for myself, I’d be more than willing to risk the consequences of a cirrohosed liver, ventricular hypertrophy and brain defects if I had a group of kindred confreres to hang out with such as found in those golden 19th Century temples of bier!

I might add along these lines that there is small but excellent book on this subject that may be referenced, should anyone wish to do further researches into the above subject of Bavarian beerhalls. The title of this book is ‘MUNICH: HOFBRAUHAUS & HISTORY, BEER, CULTURE & POLITICS’ and the author is Jeffrey S. Gaab, Professor of History at Farmingdale State University of New York. Gaab began this modest book of a hundred and fifty nor so pages as a lecture delivered at an economic history summit in Europe in 1997. It quickly proved so popular that it was soon published in hardcover (in English) by Verlag Peter Lang in Germany. The book is quite expensive to purchase (at about 75 Euros the copy), but used copies may be found at the usual venues. It is an absolutely delightful read and I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in European history (particularly that of Germany), but also to those who appreciate beer as the lovely social beverage it is (and has been, throughout all of history). [ISBN is 978-0-8204-8606-2, with publication date of 2006/2008.]

I only wish, as I myself get older and more isolated from others who share or have shared my (admittedly) dated attitudes and outlooks on America that I was located near a beerhall of this sort. It would probably help keep my mind from straying off on a path of despair and disgust over where our country is heading and what pondering the inevitable result that might have to obtain.

Meanwhile, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to continue to hope (perhaps vainly) that we can, as a nation, come closer together and stop yielding to the plethora of ignorant nonsense and mindless emotionalism that is presently tearing us apart. Until we collectively cultivate the sort of shared ‘Gemutlichkeit’ that is found in a traditional Bavarian beerhall, it appears increasingly likely that T.S Elliot’s famed quote will sooner or later come to pass:

“THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS, NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER.”

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"The object of life is not to remain in the majority, but to keep from joining the ranks of the insane."

-Marcus Arelius Antoninus

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[Note: Author does NOT advocate or support amateur attempts to end one's life voluntarily. The above is merely a philosophical exploration of issues and opinions. What you do with your life is, after all, entirely up to you.

PROFESSIONAL HUMAN, CLOSED COURSE. KIDS, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME OR ANYWHERE ELSE!" ]