The meaninglessness of ripples

"Killing myself?", the other asked, not so much because clarification was needed, but because the question was deeper than the asker could know. "What I was doing, what we were doing, was killing me... Some would say that my taking a stand was suicide, since effectively, I am dead by my own hand."

"Speaking out about things you could not change by yourself and being punished for it is not unique", the other noted.

 

"Neither is no one noticing even as they mop up the blood muttering to one another. Self preservation has it merits. Suicide only matters if someone cares that you were sacrificed to your demons. Surely I would care, albeit there are those moments I feel failure overwhelming me, but if no one else cares, does suicide make a sound?"

 

"Of course! Every life has meaning!"

 

"Nothing could be further from the truth. We tell ourselves these lies, and there are so many of them, so that we can feel better about those things we should care about but cannot be bothered to do anything about. Change only comes from pain, small or large, feeling it or moving away from it. Hard change requires hard pain. If I killed myself, being that I am a coward with no need to martyr myself, it would be painless," laughing at his cleverness.

 

"What, you a coward?"

 

"Life is a series of changes that mostly have no meaning in the scheme of things. We fear insignificance, so we are prone to hyperbole. A finger is pulled from a bucket of water. A few ripples, then it was never there, nothing reminds us. When one dies, literally or figuratively, history ripples and one is gone, even if one falls on ones sword, the ripples are no more precious. Why are we surprised to be so easily dismissed?"

 

"Surely you cannot argue that all deaths are equal?"

 

"Of course they are. A thing was living, now it is not. How is not important. Death only has meaning to those who remain alive, and if in essence they too were already dead, then there is no sound in the dying. The dying ripples and then there is nothing."

 

"This is depressing. You are depressing me...", the other offered.

 

"If you were a thinking person, you would already be depressed. The thing is, the way to give life meaning is to celebrate it while it is alive, not mourn it after it has died. We are too busy fighting our meaningless battles for ego and pride, to save face, that we cannot see the value every other person brings to our lives, agreeable or not. If we see in the poverty of another our own shame, we are brought down by it. We deny it, or we lift it up. All too often we make their sadness about us, and we step on their necks trying to keep our own heads above water. The sad thing is, the water barely reaches our knees. If we just stopped and held out a hand we could all be saved."

 

The other sat pensively, hands crossed. "So you do not want to die"

 

"That's what you took from this?"

 

"Sorry?"

 

"And that is why I would not gut myself,"the other said softly, deliberately. "Those who most need to understand it are dead already. I would never want to give that pain to those remaining, struggling to live. That I have meaning in someone's life, beyond the usual kind platitudes, that I might have left some indelible mark for good in their souls, I would not know, but certainly I hope not to have lived without having engendered some meaning. They have never really convinced me I mattered while I am alive, and certainly I will not be convinced when I am dead. But surely my life has had some meaning to someone, however silent and unseen, and more to that, my life has meaning to me."

 

The other did not interrupt at the pause, sat unmoving, a slight ruffling of fabric in the breeze. "I did what I did because I would not sully my history, my being for an inconvenience; yes, to a degree my own pride poisoned me, but I think it a noble pride that some things matter. That no one else cares enough to speak up in spite of the risks cannot be the end of me. They have their reasons, no less real. I would not kill myself because I do not matter, and that I died would not, in the sum of things, matter. That I have figuratively already died, and nothing has changed as the ripples subside, says that this is the truth. One kills oneself in order to force someone else to find their meaning. If they have not found it themselves, how can my dying find it for them? They were lost while I was alive, they will not find their way lead by my corpse."

 

"Many would consider it, suicide."

 

The other took a sugar and set it into the brown, deep tea, allowing a finger to slip under the burning water for a moment, then pulling it free from the pain, watching the ripples run across the top of the teacup, subside, and disappear.

 

"Not enough ripples in it for me... and I am already looking for another cup of tea."

 

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