Terribly sad. I wonder what the underlying reasons were.
Yeah, good question. I wonder if it is his age. At 60, you are beginning to think about the end of your career. I am 65, and am retiring. I am evaluating what I did and what I did not do. In some ways, I feel good - i have savings, my retirement will be OK. In other ways, not so much - I didnât quite get what I wanted done. Perhaps he had this sort of existential crisis - at 60, he didnât change the world, and was unlikely to do so in the remaining time. Hence, a dramatic act. The problem with the dramatic act is that he will soon be forgotten. RIP.
If you been truly present for just one person, you have changed the world.
The self-immolations by Vietnamese monks in the mid '60s come to mind and they did galvanize the worldâs attention and resistance to that war. Sadly, his death will not have that same impact and we will find little to honor ion it. R.I.P.
With all respect due to Theodoric of York, if only this clearly-caring and concerned man had given us some piece of communication, to inform us of his thought processes before doing this to himself.
If only he had, those of us who remain might have been properly able to give honor and respect to such a man by heeding his clear message to the rest of us and actingâboth in our own lives and collectivelyâupon his prophetic warning.
âNaaaaaah!â
NEW YORK (AP) â A well-known gay rights lawyer and environmental advocate burned himself to death in New York City on Saturday in a grisly protest against ecological destruction.The charred remains of 60-year-old David Buckel were found by passers-by in Brooklynâs Prospect Park. Police said he was pronounced dead at about 6:30 a.m.
The Daily News reports that Buckel left a suicide note in a shopping cart near his body that said he hoped his death was âhonorableâ and âmight serve others.â
The New York Times said it received an emailed copy of the note, which also said, âMost humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result â my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselvesâŚâ (emphases added)
Thank you for writing this so I didnât have to, and doing a better job with it than I probably would have. Someone goes to the limit to make his statement in the clearest possible terms, and people are still so mired in their own frame of reference as to wonder out loud, âI wonder what all the fuss was about.â Depressing.
Just stop for a second.
Is this what its come to? People have to burn themselves alive for people to take notice. This sickens meâŚbut not for him, but for all of us.
Youâre welcome and thanks for commenting back, UN. I honestly wondered if I was missing something myself, to the point where I asked my spouse what the opposite of âCaptain Obviousâ would be. (We came up with âColonel Cluelessâ or âAdmiral Obliviousâ.)
On such a serious topic, I wanted to be as sensitive as I couldânot knowing what emotional burdens others may bringâbut also wanted to respect this manâs choices, at least in some small way.
I wonder what EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will have to say about thisâŚand what he really thinks.
Probably doesnât care at all and thinks Buckel a fool for not just trying to optimize his financial opportunities like real caring people do.
This is a situation where the act canât be justified by the explanation, or can it? The mental health profession will search for a deeper underlying reason for a suicide, and never take it at face value. A psychiatrist will feel compelled to say that there has been a confluence of deep personal and emotional factors and the stated reason for the suicide, the later being only a precipitating or proximal cause. I say BS (but any counsellor I have seen has called me oppositional at some point). The reality we live in is more than sufficient to cause this level of despair in someone. Most of us are insulated against it, but not as much as we used to be. There is a growing pandemic of suicide among middle aged men. Are there just more emotionally troubled men than there used to be, or is there a change in outside forces? That is one of those vexing questions that plagues every demographic trend (autism) .
Not far from where I live here in Maine, there was just recently a murder suicide. A 55-60 yr old man shot his dog, his wife, then himself. The police, who were called before the man did this, found an elderly parent waiting in a car outside. I keep thinking about this, wondering just what led up to it? I know several people around here who have lost a middle aged or elderly father to suicide recently. Were they just mentally ill to begin with, or are they buckling under pressures that have built up since our social contract has been destroyed by acolytes of Ayn Rand? I am going in circles now, lost in a dark forest. Enough musing. I wish to express my sorrow for the man in this story, and all those who feel compelled to end their life. Often it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The threat to our environment and our childrensâ future is not a temporary problem, Iâm afraid.
Truly saddening all the what ifs, but my god, what determination and fucking guts to the very end.
âŚor not.
He picked a helluva bad time to try to change the subject.
Considering that the way he died only added to carbon in the air and soot in new york city, one would think he could have at least donated his organs instead. Like help with some liver transplants, etc.
I for one, recognize his sacrifice for Mother Earth, and am saddened both at his death, and for the reasons that he decided to make this statement (which I am in total agreement with.) May he see heaven.
Um, he addressed that issue in his notes.