On the Double-Decker Bus Blog, I had to report another suicide... this makes two in recent months.

Comedian Richard Jeni, best known to most as Jim Carey's (Stanley Ipkiss) buddy (Charlie Schumaker) at the bank from the movie The Mask is reported to have killed himself and was found today.

As I said, this is the second suicide I've had to report in so many weeks as professional grappler Mike Awesome (of ECW, WCW, and WWF/WWE fame...) had only a few weeks back, hung himself.

According to Robert Wilkins in The Bedside Book of Death, although suicides are committed for a variety of reasons, the most numerous are to avoid ageing, senility, or pain and although many people associate mental illness with suicide, it's almost impossible to gauge if this is a correct assumption. Cyril Joad (1891 - 1953), once said, tongue-in-cheek, that in England, you must never attempt suicide lest you be regarded as a criminal if you fail, or a lunatic if you succeed.

Alternatively, in ancient times, the Roman philosopher Seneca (5-BC to 65-AD) once said, "Do you seek the way to freedom? You may find it in every vein of your body." Suicide by the ancients was seen as an honourable way to meet one's end.

In fact, no where in The New Testament is suicide explicitly forbidden. Many feel that the early martyrs and even Jesus, knowing their fate, were in fact suicides.

Still, in the more modern Judeo/Christian orthodoxy, suicide is frowned upon... to the point that suicides were not to be buried in consecrated ground... meaning they were usually buried outside the church yard.

In different cultures and through history, self-murder is seen in many different lights... from the Japanese Hari-Kari or honour suicide to the Indian Suttee where a wife self-immolates in the funeral pyre of her cremating husband, the most common reason in North America and Europe is the Poor Me or You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone suicide.

Now, before I get started, PLEASE NOTE that in the two cases above, it's less than likely that this was the true causation... but there are historical precedents for this...

The Poor-Me and You'll-Miss-Me-When-I'm-Gone suicides are usually portrayed in a fairly romantic light... Romeo and Julliette being prime examples...

Probably the best case to talk about is Thomas Chatterton (1752 - 1770) who wrote medieval poetry on parchment paper using ancient hand and even Chaucer-like spellings. He was SO good at it, he actually managed to pawn off some of his writings as authentic to Horace Walpole... who, when he realised he was being duped, threw all his wrath at poor Chatterton.

Feelings snubbed, condescended to, and overall becoming a pariah to those who he sought for attention, he wrote a couple of suicide notes, a last will and testament, containing attacks on his worst enemies... but did not complete his "mission".

Instead, he was fired from his job and ousted from his home.

Chatterton then set out to London to try again... and things initially seemed good. He even found a supporter in William Bingley, editor of a weekly publication called North Britton.

As Chatterton's work for North Britton were about to roll off the press, Bingley contracted rheumatic fever and passed away suddenly... leaving Thomas high and dry again.

His high hopes and possibilities now gone, Chatterton drank a significant amount of arsenic... and was found by his landlady...

Henry Wallace, a painter and writer, did a portrait of the scene...

The young man, his hopes and dreams gone, lying on his bed finally at peace...

Of course, this painting is fiction. Arsenic is NOT a pleasant way to go. Chatterton's landlady said his face was "horribly contorted"... so not the image one would want for a "romantic death".

The whole trouble with the Poor-Me and You'll-Miss-Me-When-I'm-Gone deaths is, how would the REAL victim (the person committing suicide) know?

Realistically, we ALL should know that ALL problems are temporary... and there will be laughter and happiness at some point in the future, regardless of what we THINK is so awful...

Honour can be mended...

Taking oneself out of an equation is robbing those who they may not WISH to be hurt of their presence...

Most people who are "targets" of suicides (the you'll-be-sorry) mourn... but not forever... so that misses the point and is a "quick fix".

Realistically, in my opinion, there aren't many great reasons to "end-it-all"... all things are curable in one fashion or another... and even a "terminal illness" can be fought... and that fight might help the NEXT person along.

Despite our ancestor's willingness to "dive on their swords" and more modern types ASSUMING that "ending it all" in some way might help a cause or have a desired affect... it doesn't. Better a live voice to keep up a fight than a martyr.

Still, my feeble words are not enough... and history is sadly strewn with the bodies of those who, for whatever reason, assumed that the fastest solution to all problems is death.