This review is of a book that deals with suicide and suicidal thoughts. If you or a loved one needs help or support, please contact 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988, chat at 988lifeline.org.
In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the 20th century Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed to have solved all the problems of philosophy. Wittgenstein proposes that the world is not just an accumulation of objects, but of facts. Each proposition is numbered in a peculiar sequence with nested decimal places to construct a logically sound argument.
Vi Khi Nao does something similar in Suicide to diagnose and represent the problem of suicide, but instead of a numbered set of increasing values, Nao uses pi to organize her thoughts.
Pi is a mathematical constant; specifically, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be expressed as a ratio of two whole integers, i.e., ½. The digits of pi have no apparent pattern. This infinite random sequence of numbers is, if you think about it too long, incomprehensible.
Despite pi’s randomness, Nao uses it to order her propositions. The randomness of the sequence of numbers represents the irrationality of the problem while at the same time providing a semblance of stability and progression. The sequence allows for connections between propositions. Rather than a strict sequential logic, the irrationality of pi opens up the possibility for free association.
We think of suicide in terms of its pathological or psychological underpinnings. Suicidal thoughts or tendencies reflect something “wrong” with a person. And with therapy, medication, and treatment, it can be “cured.”
“3 Suicide isn’t death. It’s a statement.”
A statement to cut through layers upon layers of distraction and alienation. Nao is smashing through a hall of mirrors to get at the truth. Be it her mother’s obsession with handbags or her white therapist’s privilege, Nao’s struggle with suicide and her attempt to get at the heart of it all pushes these things to the side. These objects, privileges, and distractions all perpetuate their own form of harm. Pain grows out of our attempts to sweep issues under the rug. It festers and then latches on to us to manifest psychologically and physically.
Nao’s dissociation from life itself is a symptom of a society that chooses to punish those who do not stay in line. A society that relies on humans who provide living labor to an undead apparatus. A racist, sexist, exploitative process that requires people to have no choice but to give themselves up to it. And so it should come as no surprise that when faced with this reality, one sees death as a preferable alternative. For who in their right mind would willingly serve such a system?
“1 It goes without saying that a deep part of my depression is my inability to succeed economically.”
It would be a mistake to read Nao’s words as romantic. Ending one’s own life threatens a society that pushes people to their deaths in ways deemed unavoidable (deaths from workplace conditions, unsafe living conditions or lack thereof, starvation, etc.). Nao coolly illustrates the harms imposed by society, other people, and ourselves.
At its very core, a scream is a form of communication. It may appear raw, unsophisticated, and irrational, but given proper context, it is in many cases the perfect and only available response. Nao is building an impossible bridge over an unfathomable depth.
Opposed to Nao’s bridge building is whiteness. Whiteness affords, invests in, and maintains distance. A benefit of privilege is the distance it affords from unpleasantness. A cutting off of oneself from the rest of humanity. Whiteness wills that we join them in death, that we kill a part of ourselves that does not conform to it. Whiteness professes an indifference to the harm it perpetuates.
“2 Their white skin lends them unsatiated privilege. What I meant by privilege here is that if something is too hard, being a white privileged person, she could abandon it at any time.”
“5 She could walk away from it and probably face no consequences for it. As a person of color, we have no choice but to tackle. Everything. Everything that comes our way. If we refuse to, it would be our death.”
Nao documents an extreme awareness of her own body. There is an intimacy between mind and body (or are they really one and the same?) that continues her existence. When whiteness and privilege alienate, Nao’s train of thought is deeply situated in the activity of her body. The pumping of blood, the pulsating of organs, the energy of cells, all scream out to her.
“I am suicidal when I don’t know how to cope with success, but mainly with change, and so all the molecules in my body shouting, ‘I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.’”
And yet, Nao never dies. Despite her constant thoughts of suicide and near-death experiences, she continues to live. What, if not therapy, or handbags, or family, or economic success, is the cure to suicide?
The only cure to this disorder of the psyche is to reject the notion of value or price. To reject the idea of a “cure” itself. To say that life is valuable, or that one is “wealthy” in friendships or love, is to accept the premise of value in the first place. Connection that isn’t mediated by anything. Love and friendship without quid pro quos. The intimately personal is where Nao finds hope.
The last 50 pages of the book are filled with the continuation of the infinite series finally breaking off in the middle of Page 152. Care is infinite. Random, endlessly generating new series. Unfixed. Surprising even.
The final proposition of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus reads, “7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Screams are finite, but silence can last forever.
