To Die at The Hands of a Great Beast

[whyyyyyyyy]

Yesterday I posted a thread about swimming out endlessly into an ocean until you freeze/drown (link below) . Numerous people graciously made me aware that this would probably not be as good a method to go as I had imagined.

One person mentioned that you'd probably be wishing for a shark to come and bite your leg off. This comment brought to mind another suicide topic that I'm interested in, because I thought, 'yes, I very much would hope for a shark to attack me if I were attempting the ocean method of dying!'

Which leads to my main point here, which is that I'm not particularly interested in a painful death, but the one exception I'd be open to would be if it were at the hands of a great beast, such as a great white shark, or also possibly a Grizzly bear.

This sort of painful death feels more like a rite of nature, like a purifying union with the primal self. It would be more akin to the deaths of even are very ancient ancestors. I think it would be a great honor to die at the hands of a great beast, more so than a gunshot, hanging, or pills, for example, for these are just pithy, man-made conveyances, and they seem a bit sad, depressingly modern, and unromantic, to have to depend on.

Now, a method like jumping, or Seppuku, I'd also put very high in honor and humanness. All of these- great beast, jumping, successful cutting, take some serious balls. I like the idea of getting mauled by a bear because it's like nature is unraveling you, rather than you ending yourself. Perhaps one could rub fish oil and guts on their boots and go hiking off trail in Katmai, Alaska right before winter when the Grizzlies are starving and trying to gorge before hibernation. There would be a primordial sacredness to going out there and doing that, like an Earth ritual.

The huge flaw in that is you have a high chance of surviving and being disabled for life. Even higher odds of surviving with the shark, plus to attract one you'd have to throw chum in the water, which could easily endanger other people.

So thoughts? Just rambling, but I feel strongly that there might be great honor in challenging/old fashioned/painful ways.

The overwhelming bias on this board seems to be towards a peaceful and painless death, but I'm curious if anyone else has any thoughts on actually wanting a painful death, for whatever reason.

Method for people near oceans

What if, assuming you're a strong swimmer like I am, you just got into the ocean and started swimming away from shore without stopping? You could research rip currents to try and time it so you get sucked out super far by waves, and once you're a few miles out from shore, the odds of rescue are...

sanctioned-suicide.net

 

[Knoc]

Bears eat you alive chunk by chunk. A bear is the last animal you want to kill you.

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

This makes sense to me. Maybe buried deep in some ancient DNA we carry around, is the desire to end an unsuccessful life (like mine) by being eaten by a sabretooth tiger or a dinosaur for example. Seriously! Maybe the survival of the human race was partly in a small way enhanced by people like me visiting hungry beasts hoping they will devour me.

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

Bears eat you alive chunk by chunk. A bear is the last animal you want to kill you.

dude, did you even read my post?

This makes sense to me. Maybe buried deep in some ancient DNA we carry around, is the desire to end an unsuccessful life (like mine) by being eaten by a sabretooth tiger or a dinosaur for example. Seriously! Maybe the survival of the human race was partly in a small way enhanced by people like me visiting hungry beasts hoping they will devour me.

YES you get it, like this is a deeply ordained natural sacrament for when a life has gone astray and the glitch now must be corrected. Let the beast take you. You get it, thank you for being the one so far that gets it.

 

[brokeandbroken]

Yesterday I posted a thread about swimming out endlessly into an ocean until you freeze/drown (link below) . Numerous people graciously made me aware that this would probably not be as good a method to go as I had imagined.

One person mentioned that you'd probably be wishing for a shark to come and bite your leg off. This comment brought to mind another suicide topic that I'm interested in, because I thought, 'yes, I very much would hope for a shark to attack me if I were attempting the ocean method of dying!'

Which leads to my main point here, which is that I'm not particularly interested in a painful death, but the one exception I'd be open to would be if it were at the hands of a great beast, such as a great white shark, or also possibly a Grizzly bear.

This sort of painful death feels more like a rite of nature, like a purifying union with the primal self. It would be more akin to the deaths of even are very ancient ancestors. I think it would be a great honor to die at the hands of a great beast, more so than a gunshot, hanging, or pills, for example, for these are just pithy, man-made conveyances, and they seem a bit sad, depressingly modern, and unromantic, to have to depend on.

Now, a method like jumping, or Seppuku, I'd also put very high in honor and humanness. All of these- great beast, jumping, successful cutting, take some serious balls. I like the idea of getting mauled by a bear because it's like nature is unraveling you, rather than you ending yourself. Perhaps one could rub fish oil and guts on their boots and go hiking off trail in Katmai, Alaska right before winter when the Grizzlies are starving and trying to gorge before hibernation. There would be a primordial sacredness to going out there and doing that, like an Earth ritual.

The huge flaw in that is you have a high chance of surviving and being disabled for life. Even higher odds of surviving with the shark, plus to attract one you'd have to throw chum in the water, which could easily endanger other people.

So thoughts? Just rambling, but I feel strongly that there might be great honor in challenging/old fashioned/painful ways.

The overwhelming bias on this board seems to be towards a peaceful and painless death, but I'm curious if anyone else has any thoughts on actually wanting a painful death, for whatever reason.

Method for people near oceans

What if, assuming you're a strong swimmer like I am, you just got into the ocean and started swimming away from shore without stopping? You could research rip currents to try and time it so you get sucked out super far by waves, and once you're a few miles out from shore, the odds of rescue are...

sanctioned-suicide.net

I feel like you are more likely to die by exhaustion and drowning or from the elements in nature than either of these two things.

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

I feel like you are more likely to die by exhaustion and drowning or from the elements in nature than either of these two things.

Statistically, you're absolutely correct.

 

[Knoc]

dude, did you even read my post?

YES you get it, like this is a deeply ordained natural sacrament for when a life has gone astray and the glitch now must be corrected. Let the beast take you. You get it, thank you for being the one so far that gets it.

It does sound cool in concept like the death of an honorable warrior, but i'd would imagine that the unbereable pain of having your guts being eaten while you are still awake overides any sort of mystique.


Maybe a tiger or a lion are better? They are still primal beast but kill their prey much quicker. Is enduring an horrific slow agonazing death part of the charm? does It make It more meaningful?

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

I too find the idea of being mauled to death by a beast primitively noble. I'd love to give a giant tiger or bear an actual bear hug. For these same naturalistic reasons I also find dignity in dying in nature due to the elements or at bare minimum leaving my corpse in the wilderness to be scavenged. Viking funerals where they put the body on a floating pyre and set it adrift and then shoot a flaming arrow to ignite it also resonates.

My only concern with bears and cats is that once they get a taste for human flesh they begin to seek it out so they attack others and are often put down. I don't want them to get into any trouble for eating me.

Australia is a great place for beast-death tourism. They have man eating salt water crocodiles, great whites, lethal jellyfish and a bunch of venomous snakes.

Personally I don't like water deaths. Something like a rattlesnake bite in the desert seems like a good way to go to me.

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

It does sound cool in concept like the death of an honorable warrior, but i'd would imagine that the unbereable pain of having your guts being eaten while you are still awake overides any sort of mystique.


Maybe a tiger or a lion are better? They are still primal beast but kill their prey much quicker. Is enduring an horrific slow agonazing death part of the charm? does It make It more meaningful?

Yeah it's no doubt an awful sounding death, I'm just exploring the idea of maybe wanting a painful death. Like in Futurama, the suicide booths on every corner have a painful and a painless option, complete with a bunch of different methods.

Of course pain is always painful, and mauling by a bear must be agonizing, but I have the sense that maybe it's more meaningful because having that experience is like a rite of passage, or something.

I too find the idea of being mauled to death by a beast primitively noble. I'd love to give a giant tiger or bear an actual bear hug. For these same naturalistic reasons I also find dignity in dying in nature due to the elements or at bare minimum leaving my corpse in the wilderness to be scavenged. Viking funerals where they put the body on a floating pyre and set it adrift and then shoot a flaming arrow to ignite it also resonates.

My only concern with bears and cats is that once they get a taste for human flesh they begin to seek it out so they attack others and are often put down. I don't want them to get into any trouble for eating me.

Australia is a great place for beast-death tourism. They have man eating salt water crocodiles, great whites, lethal jellyfish and a bunch of venomous snakes.

Personally I don't like water deaths. Something like a rattlesnake bite in the desert seems like a good way to go to me.

Yes, primitively noble, you get it. Haha, beast-death tourism, nice term you just coined. Rattlesnake is a good way, I never thought of that. Dying slowly, tripping out on the poison in the intense, dry, heat. Might feel like a very spiritual and Earthly transition to being unalive.

 

[Pale_Rider]

I'm gonna guess it's really not that easy to br eaten by a shark. People have been lost at sea for months, even juts over a year is a record for one guy in a small boat in the pacific. The sea ones always seem to me to be the absolute longest ones avaliable. That's my opinion.

 

[bananaolympus]

This is like self immolation suicide by being devored by a beast is horrifying id rather jump from a skyscrapper than in the zoo

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

Dying slowly, tripping out on the poison in the intense, dry, heat. Might feel like a very spiritual and Earthly transition to being unalive.

Exactly. I would set up a camp and then go hiking with snake tongs and a pillow case and catch a ratter. Back at the camp I'd settle in with a botte of tequila and maybe some shrooms at night and then stir up the snake and so it bites me and then just lay back and look at the stars. That would be so kino.

 

[JesiBel]

Wow, being in the presence of such wild animals would put your survival instinct at its maximum, it would be an agonizing and mortifying way to "leave." Very brutal. I wouldn't even want to imagine being torn to pieces and eaten alive.

 

[bankai]

Wow, being in the presence of such wild animals would put your survival instinct at its maximum, it would be an agonizing and mortifying way to "leave." Very brutal. I wouldn't even want to imagine being torn to pieces and eaten alive.

Bears especially are not a good idea since they start eating you alive. Cats will break your neck first, so at least they have their decency.


I can't believe I'm seeing someone with an ergo proxy avatar. What a great show. The third episode was so awesome. When he flies out of the gorge in the form of the proxy. I enjoyed it a lot. Top five all time.

 

[leandra]

Dying of hypothermia in a freezing cold area would also symbolize nature taking over the body. But it is not heroic

 

[JesiBel]

Bears especially are not a good idea since they start eating you alive. Cats will break your neck first, so at least they have their decency.


I can't believe I'm seeing someone with an ergo proxy avatar. What a great show. The third episode was so awesome. When he flies out of the gorge in the form of the proxy. I enjoyed it a lot. Top five all time.

True, a barking dog scares me.. I can't imagine being face to face with wild animals. Maybe I'd die of fright before they attacked me.

..
Omg, yeees, more Ergo Proxy fans! How wonderful! I tag @Jealous Blackheart
He is also a super fan! (:

It's crazy, I talked more about the series here than anywhere else.

 

[Valhala]

What you wrote sounds coherent, only jumping doesn't fit into all of this. I don't see any difference between jumping and hanging, for example. On the other hand, arbitrary death by bullet is a long-established honorable, soldier - officer's death, rooted in military tradition and honor a hand similar to seppuku..

 

[fmbrisk]

Sharks only really bite humans because they think they sea lions and their eye sight is really bad, but they never eat them, i think. tbh i don't think a lot of animals would try to kill you unless they were on the brink of starvation, grew up eating humans, or are protecting their territory. maybe a polar bear though, those things have been known to hunt humans, but they're scary asf

 

[Jealous Blackheart]

@JesiBel You summoned me?
____________________________________


Re:[Thread]

As romantic as this animalistic ritual seems, the problem I run into is the very thing that appeals to you: this union with the primal. The thing is, it is highly likely that your primal self does not want to die. It is your sophisticated mind that is suicidal. Being confronted with danger, and greater still, challenge, will birth the human desire to overcome. Confronted with a great beast, your primal self does not think of the romance of defeat, but the thrill and triumph of survival.

I have sufficient reason to believe that in such a scenario a person's desire to die would almost certainly be temporarily suspended.

My sophisticated mind says it is over. My sentence is served and I would like to retire.
My primal self says to Leviathan, "Am I not the greater beast? You may devour me when you have bested me, when you deserve it, or it is I who will devour you."

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

What you wrote sounds coherent, only jumping doesn't fit into all of this. I don't see any difference between jumping and hanging, for example. On the other hand, arbitrary death by bullet is a long-established honorable, soldier - officer's death, rooted in military tradition and honor a hand similar to seppuku..

I see where you're coming from, I guess the reason I lump jumping in with these is because it feels very natural and independent of modernity, and because I personally feel like it requires serious guts. But I could see how I'm unique in that perspective

@JesiBel You summoned me?
____________________________________


Re:[Thread]

As romantic as this animalistic ritual seems, the problem I run into is the very thing that appeals to you: this union with the primal. The thing is, it is highly likely that your primal self does not want to die. It is your sophisticated mind that is suicidal. Being confronted with danger, and greater still, challenge, will birth the human desire to overcome. Confronted with a great beast, your primal self does not think of the romance of defeat, but the thrill and triumph of survival.

I have sufficient reason to believe that in such a scenario a person's desire to die would almost certainly be temporarily suspended.

My sophisticated mind says it is over. My sentence is served and I would like to retire.
My primal self says to Leviathan, "Am I not the greater beast? You may devour me when you have bested me, when you deserve it, or it is I who will devour you."

You're correct, but when does the deepest primal self ever want to die? The deepest, billions year-old primordial survival instinct is always the last thing clinging to the very end until it's successfully overridden. People kill themselves because they've used a combination of intellect and emotion to appraise their circumstances and deemed it not worth going on, right? Or do disagree, do you think the primal self can become suicidal?

@JesiBel You summoned me?
____________________________________


Re:[Thread]

As romantic as this animalistic ritual seems, the problem I run into is the very thing that appeals to you: this union with the primal. The thing is, it is highly likely that your primal self does not want to die. It is your sophisticated mind that is suicidal. Being confronted with danger, and greater still, challenge, will birth the human desire to overcome. Confronted with a great beast, your primal self does not think of the romance of defeat, but the thrill and triumph of survival.

I have sufficient reason to believe that in such a scenario a person's desire to die would almost certainly be temporarily suspended.

My sophisticated mind says it is over. My sentence is served and I would like to retire.
My primal self says to Leviathan, "Am I not the greater beast? You may devour me when you have bested me, when you deserve it, or it is I who will devour you."

You're correct, but when does the deepest primal self ever want to die? The deepest, billions year-old primordial survival instinct is always the last thing clinging to the very end until it's successfully overridden. People kill themselves because they've used a combination of intellect and emotion to appraise their circumstances and deemed it not worth going on, right? Or do disagree, do you think the primal self can become suicidal?

 

[Jealous Blackheart]

I see where you're coming from, I guess the reason I lump jumping in with these is because it feels very natural and independent of modernity, and because I personally feel like it requires serious guts. But I could see how I'm unique in that perspective

You're correct, but when does the deepest primal self ever want to die? The deepest, billions year-old primordial survival instinct is always the last thing clinging to the very end until it's successfully overridden. People kill themselves because they've used a combination of intellect and emotion to appraise their circumstances and deemed it not worth going on, right? Or do disagree, do you think the primal self can become suicidal?

You're correct, but when does the deepest primal self ever want to die? The deepest, billions year-old primordial survival instinct is always the last thing clinging to the very end until it's successfully overridden. People kill themselves because they've used a combination of intellect and emotion to appraise their circumstances and deemed it not worth going on, right? Or do disagree, do you think the primal self can become suicidal?

I'm confused. I don't see where we disagree.

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of wanting to die as much as it is wanting to die trying for the primal. These primitive methods you're describing still has an air of dignity and pride about them. Things I would consider pre-requisites for a noble death. Something that I've written about on other threads is that the entire concept of a good death is lost in modern culture.

Even if someone dies of old age it's seen as a tragedy. We're at war with aging. All death is bad. It wasn't always like this.

The primal self may have suicidal ambitions. Like Icarus' desire to touch the Sun. It's not so much that the goal is to die, The goal is something great and a life is the wager. If your best effort fails then that life is forfeit.

Which brings us back to the great beast. I think confronted with that, the primal self would desire to win though to even attempt is suicidal. An interesting question nonetheless. Does this reply answer or did I miss the point you were trying to make?

 

[Subhumano]

No thanks

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

I'm confused. I don't see where we disagree.

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of wanting to die as much as it is wanting to die trying for the primal. These primitive methods you're describing still has an air of dignity and pride about them. Things I would consider pre-requisites for a noble death. Something that I've written about on other threads is that the entire concept of a good death is lost in modern culture.

Even if someone dies of old age it's seen as a tragedy. We're at war with aging. All death is bad. It wasn't always like this.

The primal self may have suicidal ambitions. Like Icarus' desire to touch the Sun. It's not so much that the goal is to die, The goal is something great and a life is the wager. If your best effort fails then that life is forfeit.

Which brings us back to the great beast. I think confronted with that, the primal self would desire to win though to even attempt is suicidal. An interesting question nonetheless. Does this reply answer or did I miss the point you were trying to make?

No, no, I think we're aligned, that makes sense

 

[CarrotEater]

If you care about a honourable death, I doubt most people wouldn't consider any of that honourable. If you don't care about what others consider honourable, then be my guest, I guess.

Personally I don't correlate "natural" or "primal" with something necessarily better. It it unnatural for us to wear clothes, it is unnatural to have surgeries. Before, if you got kidney stones you just died. If nature wants to reclaim you, let it. Survival of the fittest.

I find this kind of death disturbing. If somebody is in extreme physical or emptional pain, I wish they had an easy, painless way to go. That would be honourable in my mind.

For me suicide is about comparing your current situation/near future with the other option (suicide). If I was in a burning building, I'd likely rather jump out of the window. There almost always are easier ways to go than being eaten alive.

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

I guess the reason I lump jumping in with these is because it feels very natural and independent of modernity, and because I personally feel like it requires serious guts.

This brings to mind the curios case of Tetsu Shiohara. He was a 47 year old streamer in Japan that had colon cancer. He live streamed his ascent of Mount Fuji completely ill equipped and started late in the day for which it would be impossible to descend before dark. He made it to the top and there was a gust of wind that people said sounded like the mountain goddess say "go back". He went on a little further to sip and fall 9,800 feet. The stream records his initial falling. The Internet granted him a Darwin award but others speculate whether this was suicide. At minimum it was reckless abandon. I admire him for dying in this way much more than deteriorating in a hospital bed.

Here's his stream. It's pretty long and the fall in the last few minutes. There's other documentaries on youtube that explore his life and, nature of his death and the whisper of the goddess.

For me umping is a terrifying thought and for that reason I view the 9/11 jumpers with fascination and awe and strangely heroic.

The primal self may have suicidal ambitions. Like Icarus' desire to touch the Sun. It's not so much that the goal is to die, The goal is something great and a life is the wager. If your best effort fails then that life is forfeit.

I think a noble death conveys a sort of immortality. A good death tends to validate one's life for better or worse. Icarus may not have reached the sun but his legend for trying lives on.

There almost always are easier ways to go than being eaten alive.

The body dumps all kinds of chemicals when being eaten. If you watch nature videos the prey just relaxes into it or if you hear people recount animal attacks they say they didn't feel much pain and just surrendered to the fact that they were going to die.

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

I mean honorable not for others' eyes, but purely for my own sense of how I'd like to die.

Here's a nice quote from Seneca, agreeing with you that your death should be influenced by nobody but yourself:

"Every man ought to make his life acceptable to others besides himself, but his death to himself alone. The best form of death is the one we like. Men are foolish who reflect thus: "One person will say that my conduct was not brave enough; another, that I was too headstrong; a third, that a particular kind of death would have betokened more spirit." What you should really reflect is: "I have under consideration a purpose with which the talk of men has no concern!" Your sole aim should be to escape from Fortune as speedily as possible; otherwise, there will be no lack of persons who will think ill of what you have done."

This brings to mind the curios case of Tetsu Shiohara. He was a 47 year old streamer in Japan that had colon cancer. He live streamed his ascent of Mount Fuji completely ill equipped and started late in the day for which it would be impossible to descend before dark. He made it to the top and there was a gust of wind that people said sounded like the mountain goddess say "go back". He went on a little further to sip and fall 9,800 feet. The stream records his initial falling. The Internet granted him a Darwin award but others speculate whether this was suicide. At minimum it was reckless abandon. I admire him for dying in this way much more than deteriorating in a hospital bed.

Here's his stream. It's pretty long and the fall in the last few minutes. There's other documentaries on youtube that explore his life and, nature of his death and the whisper of the goddess.

For me umping is a terrifying thought and for that reason I view the 9/11 jumpers with fascination and awe and strangely heroic.

I think a noble death conveys a sort of immortality. A good death tends to validate one's life for better or worse. Icarus may not have reached the sun but his legend for trying lives on.


The body dumps all kinds of chemicals when being eaten. If you watch nature videos the prey just relaxes into it or if you hear people recount animal attacks they say they didn't feel much pain and just surrendered to the fact that they were going to die.

Exactly, the honor of a death like bear mauling is that it seems in some strange way more meaningful than dying in a hospital bed, long past your days of use or full enjoyment of life, just clinging to life for no good reason, a drain on resources. The bear is perhaps preferable because it's the opposite of that sad, lame, modern death. Perhaps a dignity. To piggy back on Kali Yuga, author Yukio Mishima often spoke against meaningless deaths in hospital beds. He committed seppuku during an attempted military coup, which failed. It's fair to call that crazy, but at least it's not boring, and he exercised agency rather than dying passively, slowly, ineffectually, like sooo many faceless people apparently do.

This brings to mind the curios case of Tetsu Shiohara. He was a 47 year old streamer in Japan that had colon cancer. He live streamed his ascent of Mount Fuji completely ill equipped and started late in the day for which it would be impossible to descend before dark. He made it to the top and there was a gust of wind that people said sounded like the mountain goddess say "go back". He went on a little further to sip and fall 9,800 feet. The stream records his initial falling. The Internet granted him a Darwin award but others speculate whether this was suicide. At minimum it was reckless abandon. I admire him for dying in this way much more than deteriorating in a hospital bed.

Here's his stream. It's pretty long and the fall in the last few minutes. There's other documentaries on youtube that explore his life and, nature of his death and the whisper of the goddess.

For me umping is a terrifying thought and for that reason I view the 9/11 jumpers with fascination and awe and strangely heroic.

I think a noble death conveys a sort of immortality. A good death tends to validate one's life for better or worse. Icarus may not have reached the sun but his legend for trying lives on.


The body dumps all kinds of chemicals when being eaten. If you watch nature videos the prey just relaxes into it or if you hear people recount animal attacks they say they didn't feel much pain and just surrendered to the fact that they were going to die.

I agree, 9/11 jumpers are a fascinating example. I feel like, that's a rare case where suicide makes hands down sense, like no room for debate. Do you await being burned up by flames and explosions, or do you care to avoid that, by killing yourself? It's the ultimate extreme form of the basic suicide question. The flames of the tower can stand in as whatever is compelling you to end it. Is it bad enough that you'd like to jump to get away?

 

[CarrotEater]

The body dumps all kinds of chemicals when being eaten. If you watch nature videos the prey just relaxes into it or if you hear people recount animal attacks they say they didn't feel much pain and just surrendered to the fact that they were going to die.

That's interesting. I'm not going to do a lot of research on that, I've seen enough and it looked painful. But I could see how extreme adrenaline could cause that.