The Glebe 1913/11 (Vol. 1, No. 2): Diary of a SuicideBaker, Wallace E.
General
The Glebe 1913/11 (Vol. 1, No. 2): Diary of a Suicide
Baker, Wallace E.
Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Suicide
Of course, everything is dependent on my recovery of health. Without
this, life will indeed be not worth living, because the very things
my heart and mind are set on accomplishing will be impossible, and a
conventional, plodding life devoted to the accumulation of money is
impossible for me. Death is much preferable. Art, philosophy, love of
life in its nakedness, without false convention, must be my keyword,
not for happiness, for that were impossible, but for sufficient
interest to carry me through.
=Havana, Saturday, June 8, 1912.= I am gradually but inevitably coming
to the conclusion that the only way to get along is to throw over all
that I do believe in and pay the price. If I had done this before I
might have been saved much of this petty personal struggle and put
my divine energy into bigger things. I have let false conventions
battle with the natural love of freedom and radicalism of an artistic
nature, frittered away life forces in unholy passions where I might
have put it into the big struggle. Now I will conquer or die, victory
or death. Death even by my own hand is preferable to frittering the
tremendous passion and nervous and mental energy I have away in a life
of conventional ease, despising myself and hating others, and being
hated. Oh! if I had only conserved instead of wasted, but even now at
the eleventh hour it is not too late. Now, to-day, I will go forward to
my fate.
=Havana, Wednesday, June 12, 1912.= In further thought over my decision
of last Saturday, or rather that which has been growing on me for a
long time, I must add that, as I am not any too sure as to what I don’t
believe in, time must be a large factor in the matter.
Then again, due to that tired feeling and nervousness, I have during
the past six months put too much emphasis on the dark side.
I have never for more than the briefest space of time contemplated
self-destruction as I have hinted at several times. The thought has
crossed my mind in my darkest moods, but I am not a coward and to-day
must go a step further and say that I’ll fight to the finish against
all outside difficulties, as well as ill health and natural defects of
temperament and heredity. From now on any departures from a certain
standard until I have changed that standard by thought and experience,
I will consider in their proper light of weaknesses to be overcome.
All of which may be what I have been reiterating over and over again,
but my awakening of to-day is a little broader. I leave the standard
fairly flexible, but strong enough to be a rock in a stormy sea until
the waters are calmer, and then my mind should be clearer so that I can
readjust the various uncertainties to a certain point at least.
Life and a full life rather than mere reason I think will be the
outcome, but reason and philosophy presiding over all as a benignant
judge I trust. Who knows?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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