No man is an island, said John Donne in 1623 when he was facing a serious illness.
Anthony Bourdain's decision to end his life casts a pall over my day, as did Kate Spade's passing, which must have been another wound for Bourdain.
We are all connected.
I want to give some kind of beauty to Anthony, so I will post this photo and think of a California poppy folding its petals when the sun starts to move low on the horizon.
We all need the sun. A part of us folds when night falls.
A part of us dies when someone we know and love dies and also when we hear of anyone taking his or her own life.
But the poppy will become a seed pod after its petals fall. The pod will pop open after it dries, and seeds will fly in every direction.
Your life will continue in our ongoing lives, Anthony.
No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were.
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s
or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
In his meditation on death, Donne writes that all beings are one with God. The rest of the essay, when read in the context of Brexit, is just as poignant as the famous passage. Donne compares suffering to gold, arguing that we can never have enough of our neighbors’ pain: “No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it.” In other words: No one suffers alone, and being aware of another’s pain only makes us stronger and more able to live.
from Thu-Huong Ha on Quartz Media at qz.com
National Suicide Prevention Foundation Hotline 1-800-273-8255
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