Putting War and Suicide in Perspective, and Why We Need to Focus on Verbs

War is a bad thing, and it is easy to oppose, but the desperation of modern life is also a horrible thing that we need to recognize.

Amidst technological progress and rising quality of life, many people are still despondent and self-destructive. Asking people what makes them happy gets very easy answers: friends, family, meaningful work, enjoying creative activities and the like usually are atop the list. Yet, our priorities are all wrong. We pursue money, belongings, status, fashion and the like to the exclusion of the things that we know have the power to make us happy.

<== Ivan Illich

We are obsessed with nouns instead of verbs, as I have learned from the work of Ivan Illich. We allow ourselves to be convinced that having is more important than doing. We even take wonderful verbs and turn them into nouns - we get a degree instead of learning, we get medical treatment instead of healing, we have sex instead of making love, on and on and on. Of course the verbs are better than the nouns, because they can be repeatedly enjoyed, whereas the new noun toy we acquire soon loses its sparkle. Verbs also tend to involve other people, whereas an owned noun is very rarely truly shared. After long years of work and struggle to acquire the "things" we are told we need, there is still an emptiness and lack of meaning that causes people to strike out against themselves. Here is a stunning fact:

According to official statistics, about a million people die by suicide annually, more than those murdered or killed in war. As of 2001 in the USA, suicides outnumber homicides by 3 to 2 and deaths from AIDS by 2 to 1.

Something is terribly wrong with our civilization. Now we even have suicide tourism. I am not sure I can change the entire civilization, but I can raise a cry and continue to try and direct my life down the path of doing rather than having. I must be determined to promote my meaningful work, my relationships with my friends and my own creative activities. These are the things that are life-affirming.

Thanks for reading.