How would you do it?

It is a bit peculiar that I had this thought earlier this morning, only hours away from boarding a plane to a tropical city to fuck my liver over for two days and stare at girls in bikinis that are 2-3 sizes too small. But - as I was walking off the T, and throughout my 7 minute walk to the office, I was people-watching. People-watching is fun, but can also be dark. Today, I was looking around trying to make an inference.

I was staring subtly at each person that  I passed by and those as far as my less than adequate contacts would allow, trying to guess a percentage. I was wondering what percentage, and who precisely, legitimately thought about killing themselves before. If my cerebral cortex decided that person had in fact, thought intently about ending their existence, I stared through them a bit to guess how they would have done it.

Let's escape the fact that anyone reading thinks I'm a complete sociopath with a psychopathic drip. You also might assume that I was shallow in my analysis and that I just assumed that the homeless, morbidly obese, mother carrying 4 children with no father in sight, the guy with warts on his neck, the insanely skinny girl probably suffering from a mildly to moderate eating disorder (another assumption) would be the choices. Give me a little more credit. My 7 minutes of skimming went a bit beyond the surface, and i truly thought about each one. There are plenty of well dressed people, carrying Louis Vuitton bags, rocking a pair of Ferragamo's or Guisseppe's, who drive home in their Porsce Panamara and enter their 3000 sq ft. luxury apt suite that want to take 45 Xanax, fire up a noose in their living room or overzealous balcony and let the world kiss their ass goodbye.

I feel all of us are on the cusp of losing it sometimes and we say it quietly, resting on the back of our breath, "fuck this, I want to die." What pushes us over the edge? When is it too much? Why do some people have a stronger threshold for rummaging through the trash that populates our life and brings us down? Why can one woman who has lost her husband in war, has kid battling Leukemia, and is unemployed on her last food stamp check, wake up make a cup a coffee and carry forward amicably? Meanwhile the broker who is about to lose his job because a slip in the market resulting in his trips to Smith and Wollensky's to be cut to 3 times a week instead of five, is waking up praying for a razor blaze sharp enough to cut through his heart.

I picked 11 people that I thought had wanted to kill themselves. Admittedly I could only choose methods for 4 people, it takes a long time to assess the inner working of a persons mind from far away and decide which path they would take to leave the world behind, exiting triumphantly, passionately and alone. Now, I am not a suicide expert, I don't think, but I know how I would do it. I will save that for another post. I basically made my assumptions on how they would do it on the following factors:

1. How artistic they appear - Creativity level
2. How angry or strangely happy their faces are: A very angry face may go violently or at least make a show of it, a super happy person might make even more of a show if it.
3. Their height - Taller people are more likely to worry about setback with hanging.
4. Sex - Makes a difference, just does.
5. Possible religion - In times of death i think people stay true to what their god, or lack thereof would think. They are looking for some sort of acceptance.
5. And which direction they were heading on the street - One way was a good part of town the other a bad one.

I am not really sure where I am going with this post, but it was just something I was thinking about this morning. On a morning when I was happy, work was good, Florida was in the near future, sex life was spontaneous and affluent, this is when I had the darkest of thoughts. Kind of makes me think that I could be wrong in my assumptions with people this morning. The person I thought least likely to end it all already set up a Dexter like lab at their apt, ready to put themselves in a noose, slit their wrist with a butter knife repeatedly, while pulling a string attached to a door that compresses a trigger of a .44 cal to blow their brains all the way to Vietnam.

Who knows.