Yesterday in a routine call to the Veterans Administration health services, they sent me to the suicide prevention center in Portland, Oregon. The problem occurred because of my honest answers about some of the things I have discussed in this blog. It was a comic episode created by my overly deep penetrations into various philosophies and some bizarre things I’ve been doing these last few months to explore maximizing one’s life potentials. There were ten simple questions in the screening survey, and I triggered most of them as suicidal. I am not suicidal!

I have been exploring the meaning of life by practicing what the Classic Roman Stoics proposed. They suggested that every day a man should think for a while on the certainty of his coming death. He can now prepare for that certainty by doing things he can do and not wasting time doing things that have no meaningful impact after he is gone.

Some of the practices are mentally thinking through the processes of being formally executed. Some people might call them end-of-life meditations. For example:

I go to the back corner of my home, where I stand facing an imaginary Judge. It is Kafkaesque. This legal event is a sentencing and not a trial. I am not accused of any crime, only the results of the trial, GUILTY, and the punishment, DEATH.

The Judge then proceeds to pronounce the means of my death, such as the usual means of legal executions: hanging, shooting, decapitation, or, as sometimes done in ancient Rome, being pushed off a high place.

When I receive the sentence, I turn around and walk to the place of my execution, the front door. As I walk along, I look out the window at the beautiful day. I look at the bookcases and see some of the books I have read. I look at pictures on the wall that I have made. I look at the crowd of well-wishers I know and those who hate me and wish all of them well. Then I give a friendly greeting to the hangman, give him a gift, and tell him I will take care of the noose. The rope is a standard heavy sisal rope with a standard slip-knot and a noose. I place it around my neck, snug it up and pull the line tight, stand straight, nod to the others present, reach over and pull the trap door leaver, and fall.

I’ve done that hanging execution several times and feel comfortable going through the routine. So, consequently, I might be able to go through that same procedure Stoicly in the future. Maybe not.

Of the many other meditated executions I have thought through, a Vampire judge delivered the worst. His sentence was that I would be compelled to live for precisely twenty more years. I would lead a normal life, and I would escape injury and death no matter what happened around me.

My punishment would be that by living, I would be compelled to observe the world I love to be slowly but utterly destroyed by human stupidity.