Stayin' Alive

It really works!

Weight loss is a huge motivator for those on a diet. This morning I found another pound had fled in the night and suddenly all was right with the world, despite my knowing that nothing's right with the world. Still, in the teeny "world" that is my body, it's all good as I continue my adherence to The Fast Metabolism Diet. As for everything beyond my quickening metabolism, things are bleak.

Anthony Bourdain's self-inflicted death certainly opened up a can of worms. Now everywhere you turn, it seems, there are videos and articles about suicide and how it's growing, who does it and why. The one odd thing each article says is that "there is help" for those considering suicide. Usually the "help" is a voice on the other end of a "suicide prevention hotline" saying things like you'll feel better, tomorrow's another day, this too shall pass, you can't undo it, your loved ones will miss you terribly, and blah, blah, blah.

I dispute this method, since sometimes the decision to end one's life is a sound one based on irrefutable facts that portend a miserable future that will worsen over time. I say that for those people, no words from a well-meaning stranger can help and we should respect their decisions and let them go without shame or regret. Instead, what might help is reminding the depressed person that there's a big world out there and they haven't seen it all, so stick around because "you never know." That would do the trick for me.

In Aubervillers, outside Paris, a herd of sheep soldiers on, ignoring proof of their certain fate.

For example, I have never witnessed a herd of sheep strolling along a busy city street, which seems like it would be pretty much fun to see.  It's the little unexpected moments and personal joys -- see opening paragraph -- that make the big, bleak, overwhelming horrors of war, pestilence, famine, natural disasters, disease, brutality, and the disappointing evidence of man's inhumanity to man worth enduring the relatively short time allotted each of us. We should work hard to make the best of it.