The Daily Stoic

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Given that a number of prominent Stoics committed suicide, and that suicide was described by Epictetus as the “open door” it might seem like a strange theme to write about here today. But the truth is the Stoics did not take this topic lightly. Nor were they in any way advocates for such a thing, excepting the most extreme circumstances. If we could summarize the Stoic attitude towards it, we’d have trouble doing better than Churchill’s line that one should “Never abandon life. There is a way out of everything but death.” When we look at a Stoic like Admiral James Stockdale who considered suicide in a North Vietnamese prison camp, it should be noted that he wasn’t considering killing himself because he was depressed. He was heroically declining to aid the captors and torturers who wished to make him betray his country. When Seneca committed suicide—a man who had written eloquently on this topic many times—it was not because he was tired of living. He was being executed b