He wrote a book before his death. Or at least he started it. A German magazine exclusively published some parts of it. I read it today and I was always curious to learn about his inner strength and mentality. I will use google translator.
Here are the techniques I've devised. Perhaps others may find them useful in the future (but let's hope they aren't needed).The first is often found in self-help books: imagine the worst that can happen and accept it.(…)It's a fairly simple exercise because it requires a skill we all developed in childhood. Perhaps you remember crying your eyes out in bed, excitedly imagining that you would die right then and there just to annoy everyone else. What a face your parents would have made then? How they will cry when they begin to realize who they have just lost! In their tear-choked voices, as you lie there quietly in your little coffin, they will beg you to get up and come down and watch TV, not just until ten, but even until eleven, if only you were still alive. But it's too late, you're dead, which means you're adamant and deaf to their pleas.Well, that's kind of how I imagine it.Lie down in your bunk bed and wait until you hear "lights out!" The lights are turned off. Then you try to imagine as realistically as you can the worst that can happen. And then you accept it (skipping the denial, anger, and bargaining stages).I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison and die there. There will be no one there to say goodbye to. Or while I'm still in prison, people I know will die outside and I won't be able to say goodbye to them. I'll miss high school and college graduations. Graduation hats with tassels will fly in the air and I won't be there. All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I'll never see my grandchildren. I won't be part of any family legends. I'm missing from all the photos.If you think about it seriously, your imagination will rush you through your fears so quickly that you will reach your "eyes full of tears" goal in no time. The important thing is that you don't torment yourself with anger, hatred and fantasies of revenge, but move immediately to acceptance. This can be hard.I remember having to stop one of my first exercises because I thought that I was going to die here, forgotten by everyone, and they would bury me in a nameless grave. (...) I wanted to overturn beds and nightstands and scream: You bastards! You have no right to bury me in an anonymous grave. It's against the law! It's not fair! I actually wanted to scream it out loud.Instead of screaming, you have to calmly think through the situation. And what if that happens now? Worse things happen.I'm 45. I have a family and children, I've had a life, I've worked on some interesting things, done some useful things. But there is a war going on. Let's say a 19-year-old is driving an armoured vehicle, a piece of shrapnel hits him in the head and it's all over. He had no family, no children, no life. Right now there are dead civilians lying in the streets of Mariupol, their bodies devoured by dogs, and many of them, with a lot of luck, may end up in a mass grave - even though they are not to blame. I made my choices, but these people were just living their lives. They had jobs. They were the breadwinners of their families. Then one evening a vengeful wretch, the president of a neighbouring country, announces on television that they are all "Nazis" and must die because Ukraine was invented by Lenin. The next day a bomb comes through the window and they no longer have a wife, husband or children - and perhaps they themselves are no longer alive.
I never heard of such an advice in a self-help book. It sounds lik a good recipe for a rational suicide.
Do you think this actually can work?
Here are the techniques I've devised. Perhaps others may find them useful in the future (but let's hope they aren't needed).The first is often found in self-help books: imagine the worst that can happen and accept it.(…)It's a fairly simple exercise because it requires a skill we all developed in childhood. Perhaps you remember crying your eyes out in bed, excitedly imagining that you would die right then and there just to annoy everyone else. What a face your parents would have made then? How they will cry when they begin to realize who they have just lost! In their tear-choked voices, as you lie there quietly in your little coffin, they will beg you to get up and come down and watch TV, not just until ten, but even until eleven, if only you were still alive. But it's too late, you're dead, which means you're adamant and deaf to their pleas.Well, that's kind of how I imagine it.Lie down in your bunk bed and wait until you hear "lights out!" The lights are turned off. Then you try to imagine as realistically as you can the worst that can happen. And then you accept it (skipping the denial, anger, and bargaining stages).I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison and die there. There will be no one there to say goodbye to. Or while I'm still in prison, people I know will die outside and I won't be able to say goodbye to them. I'll miss high school and college graduations. Graduation hats with tassels will fly in the air and I won't be there. All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I'll never see my grandchildren. I won't be part of any family legends. I'm missing from all the photos.If you think about it seriously, your imagination will rush you through your fears so quickly that you will reach your "eyes full of tears" goal in no time. The important thing is that you don't torment yourself with anger, hatred and fantasies of revenge, but move immediately to acceptance. This can be hard.I remember having to stop one of my first exercises because I thought that I was going to die here, forgotten by everyone, and they would bury me in a nameless grave. (...) I wanted to overturn beds and nightstands and scream: You bastards! You have no right to bury me in an anonymous grave. It's against the law! It's not fair! I actually wanted to scream it out loud.Instead of screaming, you have to calmly think through the situation. And what if that happens now? Worse things happen.I'm 45. I have a family and children, I've had a life, I've worked on some interesting things, done some useful things. But there is a war going on. Let's say a 19-year-old is driving an armoured vehicle, a piece of shrapnel hits him in the head and it's all over. He had no family, no children, no life. Right now there are dead civilians lying in the streets of Mariupol, their bodies devoured by dogs, and many of them, with a lot of luck, may end up in a mass grave - even though they are not to blame. I made my choices, but these people were just living their lives. They had jobs. They were the breadwinners of their families. Then one evening a vengeful wretch, the president of a neighbouring country, announces on television that they are all "Nazis" and must die because Ukraine was invented by Lenin. The next day a bomb comes through the window and they no longer have a wife, husband or children - and perhaps they themselves are no longer alive.
I never heard of such an advice in a self-help book. It sounds lik a good recipe for a rational suicide.
Do you think this actually can work?
