RIP Anthony Bourdain

I have no problem with that in today's world, though many people do. It's a good topic for discussion. More and more people will choose that path, especially if their retirement options are bleak, and is that a sin or a practical endpoint?

We can prolong life way past the point of healthy existence, and that thought frightens me personally.

 

Wanted to see any other similarities between Bourdain and Hemingway. This was an interesting line:

I suggest this places him in an interesting crew within American writing, alongside the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer, who regarded writing as somehow unmanly, even sissy, and who therefore needed to bolster their macho credentials in some other way, be it shooting big animals or playing at boxing. Bourdain, who is more than well-enough read to argue the toss on this one, dismisses the point. "But Hemingway was only ever a writer. He didn't ever do another proper manual job. Whereas I was a cook for 25 years and I will always look at the world from that point of view."​

Anthony Bourdain: the chef who swapped his blade for a pen

For one, Hemingway drove an ambulance in World War I. Within 3 months he was wounded badly.

I don't know, it was awfully snooty of Bourdain to say that being "only ever a writer" wasn't, how do you say, manly enough.

 

You’re not being crass. Mental illness is a snaky fuck of a disease, and one of the things that disease loves to be so scary nobody ever punches through - or even tries - to the person smothered by the disease.

 

We have all been a bit depressed, sad, hopeless now and then. All human emotions. I have always felt grateful and relieved and lucky that I do not have "depression". That is a medical condition. I hope we can get to the point when we stop wishing people would call a suicide hot line---they are great for people who can be talked out of it, people who can get over it---GENERALLY SPEAKING. We would not say--boy if they just fought that cancer a bit harder,they could have beat it. That is depression, a sickness that sometimes can not be beat. So much goes into it medication wise and that is not always sucessful. No matter what success or money or amount of love people give you, it is a medical condition that will often beat you.

here are some quotes I found to give some insight. (many of the other quotes go against some of my opinions, but the big point is, it is a medical condition, not the blues)

19 Of The Best Quotes That Perfectly Explain What Depression Feels Like


1.“I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.” – Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind Of A Funny Story

2. “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise.

5. “There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.” – Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

11. “Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.” – Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir Of Moods And
Madness

14. “Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. . . . It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.” – J.K. Rowling

 

We are in a delicate place where we might be feeling sympathetic to those people taking their own lives. I have no idea if that is enabling future people taking their lives.

I also think we should not be condemning people for something we don't understand.

Maybe the fallout of a suicide should be published or brought out a little more? Maybe that would make people do this less?

 

An ambulance driver for three months. I think bourdain’s point was about non-military professions.

 

Well the guy spent 250 days out of the year on the road, which led to the dissolution of his marriage in 2016. Didn’t seem like others were a huge priority for him. That’s crass, but I don’t give a shit. I have a 10 year old daughter and I couldn’t imagine doing this to her.

 

LOL ... well, all Bourdain did was fashion stories with carrots, celery, and crickets.

 

I hope as we learn more and more about how our brains work and depression we learn how to stop treating it as some monolithic affliction. Some people are deterred by a reminder of how much wreckage they'd leave behind. Young people in particular. I know it did me at that stage in life. Others need a completely different message and treatment when we're talking issues chemical or traumatic.

 

My feeling goes against the grain, but I believe old or ill people should be allowed to pull the plug with dignity and compassion if they so choose. The alternative is suicide in hiding, leaving others seriously damaged in the fallout.

 

Having worked in restaurants for many years myself, I’d say he did more than that. He also did a lot of cocaine, which can be a job unto itself.