We all have goals, we just don’t want to work too hard to reach them. Indeed, we want the easiest way to get where we’re going — and the easiest way to figure out what the easiest way is. So it stands to reason that we’d seek the existential paths of least resistance as we’d look for the best routes to avoid traffic after a long weekend: Google. What are we hoping to achieve in the easiest possible ways? New skills. A smaller waist and a bigger paycheck. A good looking site, a better looking suit. The easiest way out.
Aw, man. Easiest way to kill oneself? Seriously? That’s such a freaking downer. I mean, it’ s bad enough that there are so many people out there contemplating suicide. But it’s a whole new level of sad that they’re searching Google for the best ways to do it. So much for going out with dignity.
As you can imagine, the search results for “easiest way to kill oneself” contain some rather disturbing tidbits, like this forum discussion on a game developer website. Oh, nerds. Then there’s the creepy Wikipedia summary divided into Bleeding, Drowning, Suffocation and Electrocution. But I think the thing that strikes me most is down, down, down at the bottom of the page, where Google presents its selection of “related searches.” Among them: “cheapest way to kill yourself.” I’m all for thrift, but if there’s one thing to blow your wad on, it might as well be this.
abstain from veering off on an elaborate imagination of two constables arresting a man for suicide and the inevitable weekend-at-Bernie’s hilarity that would ensure during the court proceedings. (“Bollocks! The powdered wig keeps falling off his head!” “Don’t be daft, hand me that stapler!”)
Technology changes, and the vestiges of ages past take on a romance of their own, simply for their being part of our past. But there’s something so sadly disruptive about an mp3 player working its way into Pratchett’s tragic tableau. Like trying to be taken seriously while crying in a monkey costume.
No Happy Medium 