The thing with suicide is that you can't be wrong about it, and that's a scary prospect. — Posty McPostface

Indeed, great comment that gets to the hub of it. However, as one gets older the price of making the wrong call does recede.

Personally, I'm not a fan of all this "life is meaningless" business, but when they tell me I have Parkinsons disease, well, I'm not sticking around for that. Adios amigos!

The thing with suicide is that you can't be wrong about it, and that's a scary prospect. — Posty McPostface

Maybe. I think you can be wrong about suicide in so much as not every attempt at suicide is successful. I say that in all seriousness because the only thing worse than trying to leave a world by suicide, is only making it halfway and actively choosing to be a burden to your loved ones.
And speaking of your loved ones left behind, YOU would be the one to selfishly leave the suicide legacy in your family history, something that can be looked to by future generations.

Personally, I'm not a fan of all this "life is meaningless" business, but when they tell me I have Parkinsons disease, well, I'm not sticking around for that. Adios amigos! — Jake

Jake, there can be a great degree of time between the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and a quality of life not worth living anymore.
Tell me something in this hypothetical, how are you going to take your own life and are you going to tell your loved ones? Will they be present? And, as easy as people talk about suicide, it is not so easy to carry out successfully. What happens if you only make it half way and are mentally incapable of making your own decisions?
I've seen Parkinson's raw and up close and as rough as that is? It ain't nothing in comparison to being a body without a mind.

Jake, there can be a great degree of time between the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and a quality of life not worth living anymore. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

My mom died of Parkinson's. The problem is that if you wait too long, you lose the choice, and can be stuck for many years in a collapsing body prison.

And, as easy as people talk about suicide, it is not so easy to carry out successfully. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

It takes one second of decision.

And speaking of your loved ones left behind, YOU would be the one to selfishly leave the suicide legacy in your family history, something that can be looked to by future generations. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I never really tried committing suicide. But, it takes some real balls to go through the act. I hope that my comment wasn't meant to insinuate anything, as it's a touchy subject.

Personally, I'm not a fan of all this "life is meaningless" business, but when they tell me I have Parkinsons disease, well, I'm not sticking around for that. Adios amigos! — Jake

I find the unrestrained individualism problematic. At one end fine, if that's what you want to do. But, there are cures for the disease that are being devised and implemented in clinical trials.

"I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens." Woody Allen.

Parkinson, alzheimers, metastatic cancer, extreme multi-drug resistant bacteria, getting run over by a truck and being not quite dead, non-fatal but catastrophic brain damage, Lou Gehrigs disease, etc. All bad.

The bit about not waiting too long... True. A friend had planned to commit suicide under xyz circumstances. XYZ circumstances arrived (cancer, immobility from weight and arthritis, heart disease, etc.) and she was no longer capable fo carrying out her plans.

I do not have definite plans regarding suicide. What may come hasn't arrived yet. Like how fast will whatever disease there is be expected to take? 6 months? 6 years? How bad will it be? What might be my circumstances at the time? 85 years old, isolated, very poor, bad nursing home, relatives all dead... what would be the point of going on at that point?

With a little effort I can wonder what the point is of going on for the rest of this week. Time to go to the corner bar for a beer. Maybe an oracle will be sitting at the bar who can tell me what will happen.

The bit about not waiting too long... True. A friend had planned to commit suicide under xyz circumstances. XYZ circumstances arrived (cancer, immobility from weight and arthritis, heart disease, etc.) and she was no longer capable fo carrying out her plans. — Bitter Crank

Yea, that's the outcome I would hope to avoid. But, it's not always possible. You know, one could have a stroke out of the blue, a car accident etc. But if one has some warning, I don't see the point of the heroic hanging on until the bitter end philosophy. But that's just me, I don't have an opinion on how others should proceed.

I'm wary of greed. I'm a lucky fellow and have had way more than I probably deserve. 67 years and counting. If I die today I've gotten a totally fair deal. I'm wary of spoiling this happy story by being greedy for every last minute. If I have a choice I'd prefer to go out on top.

I see the matter as many lines in parallel. I know people whose depression is a burden they would have gladly shed already if it wasn't for their sense of duty to others. There are some who have killed themselves to form a sentence upon others. Or maybe just form a sentence.
Some are fascinated by their fear of death and obsess over it to the point that they attract it to themselves. A number of drug addicts I knew in my youth went through this and either passed through it or did not.
Then there are philosophies or perhaps I should call them moral codes that prepare one for death. Bushido calls for one to embrace one's death so completely that it stops a process inside of you. It stops fear of death, of course, but also hesitancy to act when required. They are not far off from the Gurdjieff teaching but without all the celebration about how smart they are.
Taoism teaches you only have so much in the tank. You should worry about getting re-fills wherever possible if you are having fun and less about what cannot be controlled. They do have a section that obsesses over immortality but it is mostly there to encourage the original observation.

What's going awry with this kind of thinking is not that it's wrong, but rather that the lack of experienced payoff is being universalized. For some people, life really is this way. There is no experience of joy or pleasure in their lives. You eat to deal with hunger pains, and it seems for no other reason than that you may continue to experience hunger tomorrow. The issue is projecting this lack of payoff in your personal life onto everybody elses - universalizing it. I used to do the very same thing. At times I have been quite deeply depressed and suicidal, eating was nothing but a chore for me, food was unenjoyable. It seemed the world was just a blind process of suffering perpetuating itself, using human embodiment and all the misery that entails to further it's own existence. Suicide became a very serious consideration. But since I have become better, hunger doesn't seem like such a monumentally raw deal to experience the pleasures of eating, and the novelty of trying new foods. Neither view is wrong per se, the issue is when you project the very personal character of your own experience (are you experiencing a payoff? aren't you?) out onto the rest of the world. It's as if because you personally are not feeling joy from eating, and therefore all eating, for everybody in the world, is nothing but a chore to quell the pangs. There's two issues here. The fundamental unchangeable character of the world - the dissatisfaction that pervades everything, and the varied amounts of payoff each human gets from dealing with their needs and wants - the degree to which you can feel genuine pleasure and joy. The latter is what can be managed. You can't change the fundamental character of the world, but you can get alter and work on how much payoff you can get from dealing with it. At least in my own experience you can start experiencing the payoff again, and life isn't so bleak. — Inyenzi

So the Schopenhuaer metaphysical system brings up the point of what it is to be. According to his theory, to be is to will (to want, to desire). This is deemed as negative as there is lack and lacking is deemed as a deficiency in the system. This raises the question. What would a metaphysics of being be that is not will (desire or want)? It is almost unfathomable.