2005-01-13 - 10:36 p.m.

suicide jokes

So Jason called. I was relieved that he was, as usual, merely neurotic in that quaint, Woody-Allenish way rather than fully freaked out. I told him of my dramatic night here in San Marcos, and of IMs from suicidal friends.

"Were we ever so young?" he said with a laugh and a sigh.

"I know- suicide is soooo several-years-ago," I replied, relieved to be able to make an off-color joke.

With that in mind, I reflect that a lot of people go though a self destructive phase. I'm reminded of somethin Dr. Raphael said in a lecture- in refering to resurection myths around the world, she remarked that "it seems many pre-teens have visions of death and resurection, and some are actually stupid enough to try it out." Taking this a step further, I see our culture as one of suspeded adolesence, giving, say, a twenty-year-old the same sense of being on the brink of salvation/total anaihilation that would normally be found in a twelve-year-old. Then again, maybe that's a shaky justification- part of what makes puberty so horrifying is the sexual aspect, and that actually has an earlier onset in modern America than in some cultures and times. I'm gonna need to think about this.

The last thing I wrote before this thing. The next thing I wrote after this.