Excerpt from Rorschach’s journal, October 16th, 1985
“…Heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.
Doctor says “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.”
Man bursts into tears. Says “But, doctor…I am Pagliacci.”
Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Fade to black.”
In the film Matrix, a scene shows the protagonist, Neo, talking to a bald child in the Matrix who can bend spoons. The child can bend and straighten the spoon at will just by looking at it. He then passes the spoon to Neo and asks him to try. Neo stares and stares but nothing changes. The child then says:
Child: “Do not try to bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead only try to realise the truth.” Neo: “What truth?” Child: “There is no spoon.” Neo: “There is no spoon?” Child: “Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”
This philosophy, while sounding rather simple and nonsensical, can be applied to modern day life in so many ways.
For example, as people mature, they have a tendency to lose the creativity and innocence of their inner child. They find that reality is too harsh and cruel and one must follow the strict rules of society to survive. They feel as if they are trapped in a box, unable to escape forever. This pessimistic view of life and the world restricts their ability to be happy. These people have not yet realised the truth.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people in the developed world. Every year, approximately one million people take their own lives – far greater than the number of people dying from liver disease, Parkinson’s or even homicide. Despite being one of the most preventable causes of death, suicide still plagues society. Among the many factors contributing to suicide attempts (mental disorder being the major one), one of the more interesting one is mass media. The effect of mass media on suicide rates can be traced back as far as 1774.
In 1774, Goethe wrote a novel called The Sorrows of Young Werther, where the hero shoots himself after an ill-fated love affair. Shortly after publication, there were many reports of young men who used the same method as Werther to commit suicide. There were even reports of people dressing up like Werther (yellow pants and blue jacket) or leaving the book open to the passage detailing his death next to themselves. After this event, the book was temporarily banned to stop the “epidemic”. Since then, the phenomenon of copycat suicides has been called the Werther effect.
The human brain is trained to think about the information it receives. This applies to suicide as well and people with mental disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder are more prone to suicidal thoughts after hearing stories about it. This effect is amplified by the media tending to glorify or beautify such deaths (as the subject tends to be a celebrity or a fictional character), causing some people to subconsciously believe that suicide is acceptable. In essence, the Werther effect is a form of peer pressure where cognitive dissonance lead people to act irrationally because others in society appear to be doing the same thing.
The Werther effect is surprisingly effective in predicting an increase in suicide attempts after the publication of news regarding suicide. On April 8, 1986, a Japanese singer called Yukko Okada, only 18 at the time, committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of her recording studio. Her popularity meant the media were over the story like hungry wolves, reporting the tragic death in every form possible. Within two weeks, 33 young people (including one nine-year old) killed themselves – 21 by jumping from buildings. This episode was dubbed Yukko Syndrome and is one of the most famous cases of the Werther effect in modern society.
Just like in the original case of the Werther effect, the suicide could be fictional and still cause an increase in suicide rates. There was a German television show called Death of a Student that depicted a railway suicide of a young man at the start of every episode. After it began airing, railway suicides by teenage males increased by 175% in Germany. Curiously, there was no increase or decrease in suicide rates via other methods, suggesting that the Werther effect not only affects the choice of method, but also induces suicidal thoughts in those who did not plan on killing themselves.
In 1987, a campaign in Vienna to inform reporters about the Werther effect and the role of the media in suicides led to a dramatic drop in reporting suicides. This was followed by an 80% drop in subway suicide and non-fatal attempts, along with a decrease in the total number of suicides.
The Werther effect is a fine example of how words can kill.
Everyone goes through a tough time at least once in their lives. As modern life is ideal for stress to build, it is easy to get weighed down by fatigue and negativity. Pent-up stress is the cause of all ill health and one cannot lead a healthy life without overcoming their stress. Although everyone has a unique method of overcoming stress, there are some very effective generic methods of stress relief. Some examples include hobbies, laughter yoga and meditation, but the method that will be introduced here is progressive muscle relaxation, or PMR. PMR is very simple and doesn’t take up much time, making it a useful way of relieving stress for busy people.
Sit back comfortably, close your eyes and rid yourself of all thoughts.
Breathe in slowly and deeply and then breathe out. Concentrate on your breathing.
Relax all the muscles in your body into a jelly-like state.
Squeeze both hands into a fist as hard as possible for 5 seconds, then release.
Rest 5 seconds and then repeat twice more.
After three cycles of contraction and relaxation, repeat with your arm muscles.
Apply the same three cycles on your feet, legs, abdomen, chest, neck and head.
The key principle of PMR is achieving complete relaxation by concentrating all your energy into one spot then releasing it. Furthermore, concentrating on your slow breathing has a meditation effect, resting both your mind and body. Once you are relaxed from head to toe, you will feel all the fatigue in your body disappear. There is no greater enemy than stress. Therefore, it is best to have your own defence mechanism against it, but it also very useful to know a few general methods.
Now, try the progressive muscle relaxation on yourself to resolve all the stress that accumulated over the day.
Spring. The warm sunshine and the soft breeze form a balance to breathe new life into everything – flowers, trees, hibernating animals, babies. The baby grows on the nutrition that is love. The baby spends the most peaceful, free stage of childhood and experiences new things every day. He learns life slowly as he grows like a fresh sprout. Unfortunately, at this stage the sprout is also vulnerable to harm, and these scars will be a burden for the rest of the baby’s life.
Summer. The hot, burning sun, the boundless, clear ocean. The hot, burning love and desires, the boundless, clear possibilities life brings. The boy spends the happiest moments in his life, and discovers what he wants and who he is. Through this he also develops obsessions; his main obsession is love – so hot that it may even burn up into ashes or cause scalding wounds. He enjoys the present, without knowing the weight of the world and true pain. To him, the future is a land of infinite dreams and hope. His boyhood times burn like a roaring flame, and happiness reaches a climax.
Autumn. The leaves, bleached yellow, fall gently. The endless and cloudless sky. The cold wind. The boy, now a young adult, laments why life and love are so painful, and why he must suffer so much. The future that was once full of dreams has now become a hopeless reality. As the leaves die away, so do the boy’s hopes, romance and his identity. Can he pull through this bitter adolescence? What does he wonder while staring at the dead leaves? No one truly understands his thoughts and pain, and he trudges along a road strewn with leaves. The passion and heat of summer have completely disappeared.
Winter. There is no life. Only white snow covers the world, turning it into a blank page. The man feels that there is no meaning to life, and looks back on his life. The dream-like spring, the passionate summer, the despairing autumn, the end of the four seasons – winter. But then, he finally realises. The naive spring, the foolish summer, the pain he overcame through autumn. The man looks back at how he has grown and developed, and turns his attention to his inner self for the meaning of life and peace. After overcoming his mid-life crisis, he clears his mind and reaches nirvana.
Spring. A spring comes again, new life arises once more. The old man calmly smiles and thinks. He now understands the true meaning of life and is satisfied with his. He sees a baby facing another set of four seasons and thinks: “That child will walk a similar journey as I did.” He now knows that life cycles, and that spring will indubitably return always.
